


Blood Brothers

by IgnorantArmies



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Backstory, Brotherly Angst, Except more hurt than comfort right now, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Libertalia, Memories, Prison, Quite a lot, Sam gets beat up, Sorry Not Sorry, Uncharted 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-03-20 21:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13726533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IgnorantArmies/pseuds/IgnorantArmies
Summary: All the times Sam ends up bleeding for his little brother in Uncharted 4(Filling in the gaps in UC4 from Sam's point of view - brace for angsty, guilt-riddled, beaten-up Sam)





	1. Panama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the prison break.

_Head for the lighthouse._

They were so close. Sam could see the top of the dilapidated tower jutting up above the cliffside. They were gonna make it. Of course they were. It’s what they _did_ – scrambling and half-assing their way through situations that should have been the end of them. If the Drake brothers had a business card, _By The Skin Of Our Teeth_ would be their tagline.

He followed Rafe and Nathan across the prison rooftops, trying not to flinch every time a bullet ricocheted a little too near. The guards were right behind them now, but there were only two more buildings between them and the tree line. Just a couple more jumps. Rafe was already waiting at the edge of the compound on the roof of a storage warehouse, yelling at them to catch up, like _they_ were the ones who'd screwed everything up and got them into this mess. Sam was going to have to have serious words with that asshole when all this was over. But first, they had to get out of this without getting riddled with bullets. Sam watched as Nathan leapt the gap and grabbed hold of a pipe that immediately broke loose from the wall. A shout died in Sam’s throat and he reached out reflexively, but his brother managed to find a safe handhold and clamber over the ledge. Sam let out a long, whistling breath.

_He’s okay. We’re okay. Almost there._

Except… the gap was just a little too far now. Nothing to catch onto except a big ol’ expanse of air, and then a ten foot drop to the corrugated iron roofs below. They’d come this far. Their luck couldn’t run out now. Sam crouched behind a railing, ducking beneath a fresh hail of gunfire. A couple of guards were hastily climbing the watchtower behind him. If they made it up there, they'd be able to pick off the escapees like fish in a barrel. This was too close. Too risky. He hunkered down, eyes darting for an alternate route.

“Sam!” Nathan yelled, lying on his belly on the rooftop across the way, reaching out an arm. “Come on, I’ll pull you up!”

Sam let himself doubt it for only a split second. He pushed himself off and sprinted towards the gap. Nathan would catch him. He had to believe that.

His feet left the edge and for a moment there was only sky and wind and freedom – but it wasn’t enough. The gap was too wide. The arc of his jump was already declining and time slowed down as the roofs below came rushing up to meet him…

Then a bruising jolt as he hit the wall; Nathan’s solid grip tight around his wrist. Sam glanced up with a shaky smile of relief. His brother grinned back. _By the skin of our teeth. No job too stupid._

“C’mon!” Nathan grunted, yanking him up until Sam managed to get his forearms over the ledge. He paused for a breath – the jungle was only a few paces away; the sparkling sea a little way beyond; and past that… 

The clatter of bullets on the metal roof made Nathan duck.

Sam didn’t register the pain at first. He was still winded from the jump and the impact of the shots felt more like a punch to the kidneys. Maybe he was okay, maybe they’d missed him–

Then he looked at his little brother and saw the truth of it in Nathan’s horror-stricken face.

Sam glanced down. A dull, cold ache in his abdomen suddenly turned hot as the blood began to flow, and all the strength melted out of his muscles.

_No. Not now. We were so close…_

He let out a little laugh at the universe’s shitty sense of humour before the pain came rushing in, sharp and shooting, spiking through his ribs on the left side. He choked out a cough, tinged with blood, and slipped backwards, unable to make his body respond to his commands.

Nathan gripped his arm tighter. “Sam… No… No, you hold on!”

A little “oh” escaped Sam’s lips – it was meant to be followed by “shit” but consciousness was draining away too fast. He hung by his wrist again, his entire weight dependent on his little brother. It was too much, Sam thought hazily. He always did put too much responsibility on the kid, maybe he should just let go...

“Sam! Give me your other arm, c’mon, reach!” Nathan’s voice was cracking with desperation. The words sounded muffled behind the roar of blood in Sam’s ears.

He managed to turn his eyes upward once more – at least the last thing he saw would be something he loved. Not this sweat-soaked island; not these dust-stained prison fatigues; not this hate-filled prison; but the one person who had always been happy to see him, no matter how much he messed things up. He wanted to say sorry. He wanted to say a lot of things. But there was no time. There were no words. Only the heavy sweep of unconsciousness and a distant sensation of falling…

 

 *    *    *

 

Sam woke in a room full of whispering voices, feeling like he’d been cut in half. The muttering made no sense – too far away and full of words he couldn’t decipher. For a moment he wallowed in a swimming confusion until his memory kicked in like a boot to the gut. Panama. The rooftop. Gunfire. Falling.

He risked opening his eyes. Dimmed lights and a cracked, water-stained ceiling hung above him. The familiar smell of the prison block, layered over with antiseptic and the iron tang of blood. The medical room. He'd been in here before, after cheating a little too often at cards or being on the wrong side of an exercise yard fight. He was lying on a rusty gurney, bare chested, abdomen swathed in blood-soaked bandages, his lower half covered with a white sheet. His left side felt like it had been ripped open and stuffed with sand. His throat was raw and he was so thirsty every breath hurt. He tried to sit up and regretted it instantly. Fiery agony erupted from the gunshot wounds and left him gasping.

The voices stopped for a moment then continued in hurried whispers. He could see figures outside, silhouetted through the glass of the door. His aching brain caught up and made an attempt at translating the murmured Spanish.

Something about… ethics? Something… not allowed _._ Well, there were no ethics in the prison and a whole lot of things that weren’t allowed so that didn’t exactly narrow it down.

The same phrase over and over: _“He doesn’t exist, understand? He does not exist._ ” 

Then an argument too fast for him to follow. One of the voices seemed to win, because the other went quiet.

“ _Is that clear?_ ” said the first voice, emphatically. “ _Well?_ ”

The other voice murmured a begrudging affirmative and Sam heard a door open and close further down the corridor.

He tried to move but he was pinned in place with pain and restraints. His left wrist was cuffed to the bed rail and his right was in a cast. He flexed his arm beneath the plaster and winced at the swollen throbbing in his forearm. Must have been the fall, he thought. The more he reacquainted himself with his broken body the more he realised just how much of it was covered in bruises and scrapes. His ankles were shackled together, too - and, by the sound of it, chained to the end of the bed. They jangled when he shifted.

The door to his room opened suddenly and Sam closed his eyes, trying to quieten the thudding of his heart. Footsteps approached the bed and the smell of cigarettes and a foul cologne drifted through the air.

“ _You can stop pretending_ ,” a voice – the first voice – said. Then, in English, “You’ve slept enough, I think.”

Sam looked up into a lined, stubbled face that wore an expression of mild amusement - the warden. He'd met the man before, briefly, back when he and Nathan and Rafe had orchestrated themselves being thrown into this shithole. Sam's concussed brain couldn’t remember his name but the guy’s reputation was unforgettable. Even Vargas had been afraid of him, and Vargas hadn’t given two shits about any kind of authority.

“How are you feeling?” the warden asked him.

Sam tried to laugh but it came out as a groan instead. This was his cue to say something witty and scathing like, “Y’know, the room service here sucks,” but instead his parched throat spoke for him: “Water…” was all he could manage.

The warden nodded and disappeared from his limited view for a moment, returning with a glass of water. Sam tried to raise his head but even that was too much effort. To Sam’s shame and surprise the warden placed a gentle hand behind his neck and helped him to take a few sips.

Sam drank gratefully, a sigh escaping his lips without his permission. The warden placed the glass down on a trolley beside the gurney and leaned on the bedrail, making a slow appraisal of Sam’s injuries.

“Your surgery was difficult, they tell me. You lost a lot of blood.”

Sam managed to nod. He felt like paper-thin, as if half his body weight had drained away with all the blood. He’d never felt so vulnerable in his life. 

“One, two, three-" the warden counted the patches of blood that seeped through the bandages on Sam's ribs. "You were lucky," he said conversationally.

"Uh huh," Sam replied cautiously. He didn't feel lucky. Not at all.

" _This_ one was particularly tricky,” the warden said, leaning over to press a finger into one of the wounds. White hot pain exploded inside Sam's body, engulfing his senses. A scream ripped out of his throat and he writhed against his restraints until the warden removed the pressure.

“Yes, very tricky,” the warden repeated calmly, once Sam's yelling had reduced to choking gasps, "A few millimetres to the left and it would have gone straight through your bladder.” He shook his head, “Not pretty at all.”

Sam’s breath came out ragged and torn. He glared up at the man with every ounce of rage he could muster.

“But… you’ll live,” the warden continued. It sounded more like a threat than a reassurance.

Sam's head swayed, trying to retain consciousness. The pain hadn’t abated, just melted into a general kind of agony that made it impossible to move, or think, or speak.

“I have something to show you,” the warden said, pulling a piece of paper from his back pocket and holding it in front of Sam's sweating face.

Sam squinted at it. It looked like an official document, headed with an ornate stamp and typed in Spanish. His name was there. And his birth date. And–  

“Your death certificate,” the warden explained, folding it neatly back up again and tucking it away. “Signed by the coroner, along with an article – front page, in fact – in the national newspapers describing your attempted escape, the murder of a prison guard, and the brave efforts of prison staff to bring you down.” He sighed theatrically, tucking the sheets tighter around Sam’s prone form like a father putting his child to bed. “Unfortunately, you did not make it, Mr Drake. You brother will be most upset, I’m sure, when he hears the news.” 

“No…” Sam whispered hoarsely. Nathan wouldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t. _Would he?_

The warden tapped the bedrail, a gold ring clinking against the metal. “It is regrettable that your brother and Mr Adler escaped, but to be frank, the three of you were more trouble than you were worth. No great loss to us, and now, highly unlikely that they will be back, no?”

Sam’s mind was sluggish. He blinked at the warden dumbly. “Why?” he croaked. “If I was such a pain in the ass... Why didn’t you just let me die?”

“Well,” the warden drawled, toying with the cup of water beside the bed. Sam whet his lips reflexively, unable to drag his eyes away from the glass. “Call it a trade-off. Vargas might have been an easily-bought, back-stabbing petty thief but he was _one of ours_."

_Honour amongst assholes._

The warden’s eyes narrowed with malice and he began to pour the water slowly onto the floor. Sam watched helplessly as it streamed over the concrete and slipped into the drain in the corner. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his breathing. So. Plain old revenge, then. Mindless, pointless revenge.

When the warden spoke again his voice was closer, right beside Sam’s ear. Sam couldn't help but flinch, and the warden's words were soft and low: “Justice must be served, Mr Drake. The murder of a prison official demands a life sentence. And, for a man who is technically already dead, it will be very interesting to discover just how long we can make that life sentence last. No one is coming for you, Samuel. I want you to realise that now.”

Sam kept his eyes shut. His chest heaved with adrenaline and pain and rage and despair. He wanted to scream. He wanted to rip free of his restraints and throw himself at the man, tooth and claw. But something inside him was closing down, freezing him with fear. He was alone. He was trapped. No one would ever know he was even here. _Nathan would never know._

He felt the warden move away, heard the door creak open once more, then a pause.

“You will live,” the warden repeated. “But you may wish that you hadn’t.”

Sam took in a shuddering breath and felt hot tears streaming down his temples, unable to prevent an image of Nathan’s face appearing behind his eyelids. Nathan’s face, watching him die. Nathan, believing him dead. Nathan, leaving him behind.

 _No one is coming for you, Samuel._  

The door clicked shut.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never quite worked out the canon logic for the Panamanian jail to keep Sam's survival a secret but it makes for a very villainous warden. Hope you enjoyed it.


	2. Madagascar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam tries (and fails) to get word to Nate from prison.

The sun beat down on the open top 4x4 as they tore through the crimson mud of Madagascar. Sam turned his face towards the light, basking in the heat. No matter how long he’d been free, he never got tired of wide open spaces. Nathan’s driving might leave a little to be desired, and the terrain wasn’t exactly smooth, but a little knot of tension was starting to loosen in Sam’s guts. They were on their way to Avery’s treasure – so close he could almost smell it – and he was back with his brother, right where he was meant to be.

Sully turned around in the passenger seat and gave him a brief, guarded look, “Hey Sam, if you don’t mind me asking, how’d you pass the time in prison?” 

The tension returned immediately, but Sam tried to shrug it off. He didn’t like talking about Panama but he knew Nathan and Sully must have a million questions. _Stick to the truth as much as possible_ , he thought. _The best lies are always based on truths, no matter how small_.

“Oh y’know," he said, "reading mostly. There was this one guard… saw me as a charity case I guess. He’d check out books from the library for me.” 

Sully nodded. “So what you’d read?”

“History – especially anything related to Avery and other pirates. Just in case, you know.” _Keep the subject on the mission. That’s why we’re here._

“Sure,” Sully said, turning back around, apparently satisfied. Though if Sam knew Victor he'd keep prodding. The old man never really gave up once he got started.

Nathan, meanwhile, said nothing. Sam watched the back of his brother’s head for a sign that he'd noticed the edge of reticence in his voice. An awkward silence followed and Sam attempted to fill it.

“But, you know, besides books… push ups, smoking, trying to stay out of fights between rival gangs. Just a whole lotta thinking. That’s pretty much it.”

_A whole lotta thinking. Thirteen whole years of it. Enough to drive you crazy. Enough to make you desperate._

He knew it was coming. He saw the troubled look in Nathan's eyes in the rearview mirror. His brother phrased the question lightly but Sam could feel the hurt in it: “Sam, if you had a guard doing you favours, why didn’t you use him to get word to us?”

“Oh, I tried,” Sam answered, with a sigh. “I asked him to mail a letter – to your P.O. box.” 

“I never got it.”

Sam took a deep breath. “Well,” he said, fiddling awkwardly with his lighter in his lap, “That’ll be because the warden saw it.”

_You don’t exist. No one is coming for you._

The memory was still raw, after all these years. He cleared his throat and squared his shoulders, trying to brush it off as nothing with a twisted smile that had absolutely no humour in it. “I got busted up pretty bad and never saw that guard again.” That was an understatement if ever he'd heard one but they didn’t need to know the details. He’d tried to block it out from his own head but nightmares reminded him with painful regularity.

“Jesus…” Sully said.

Nathan stayed quiet. Out of guilt, perhaps? Nathan had said he’d looked for him, but the evidence of Sam’s apparent ‘death’ was conclusive. They’d done a neat job of erasing his existence, Sam knew that, but there were years when he’d been furious at his brother for not trying hard enough to see through the lie. But he could only imagine what Nathan had gone through, believing him dead, blaming himself for leaving him behind. He knew his little brother. Knew his heart. It would have eaten him up inside. The thought only made Sam feel worse.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

 

*     *     *

 

The guard’s name was Dimitris. He was a quiet guy and liked his books as much as Sam did. He seemed to appreciate the challenge of rooting through the non-fiction section rather than doling out the usual novels and magazines. And he didn’t treat Sam any differently, despite the ‘special circumstances’.

All the guards knew about Sam’s status as an undead, undocumented, unacknowledged prisoner. They’d kept him hidden away in the medical block until he’d recovered from his attempted escape, shackled to his bed, and given just enough pain relief to stop him from going completely insane. His wounds had healed, his arm had mended, and as soon as he could walk again they threw him into solitary to ‘get his head right’ before he reintegrated. This, thankfully, his memory _had_ managed to blank out. The days and nights merged into one another in the cold, dark cell, punctuated only by the twinges of his injuries and the occasional delivery of slop dressed up as food.

The secret of his situation was carefully kept from the other prisoners, who were told Sam was serving a couple of back-to-back life sentences for killing Vargas. He didn’t even bother to try to correct them or protest his innocence – the truth didn’t matter, and the fact that they believed he had the cojones to shiv a guard certainly didn’t do him any harm when it came to earning a little respect from his fellow inmates. After a week or so of questioning him about the failed breakout they avoided him, mostly, which suited him just fine.

The other guards, however, took his presence... personally. Any prisoner who attacked a guard was destined for rough treatment, the last portion of food, the poorest share of any luxuries, and inevitably took the blame for any minor discretion whenever a guilty party couldn’t be found. The other prisoners quickly learned that he made an excellent whipping boy and were swift to give his name up, no matter what the crime. Sam kept his head down, took his punishment whether he deserved it or not, and counted the hours until he was safe back in his cell with his latest book. He notched up the days and the weeks and the months with only one thought keeping him going. Nathan will work it out eventually. Nathan will come for me.

Dimitris was different from the other guards. He appreciated a good conversation and didn’t hold Sam’s notoriety against him when it came to discussing his latest library find. A couple of years into Sam’s endless sentence, he landed a job in the basements with Dimitris as his supervisor. Sam was routinely given the shittiest jobs, being on the lowest rung of the prison ladder. If he wasn’t scrubbing the latrines he was washing filthy laundry or crawling around under the giant industrial fridges in the kitchen, fishing out dead rats and draining all kinds of disgusting fluid from the age-old condenser units. Then one day his detail changed – he was sure it had been Dimitris’s doing – and for a few short months he was sent down to the blissful cool of the basements, clearing out storage rooms full of dusty possessions belonging to long-dead or released prisoners, methodically replacing the rotten floorboards and scraping mould off the walls.

It was an oasis of quiet and calm, and Sam didn’t mind the work – it was mindless but satisfying, and pretty much anything beat dealing with shit and piss and dirty clothes and kitchen waste. Dimitris would find a corner to sit and watch him, occasionally offering a smoke, and they’d talk about the history of Panama and the hijinks of various pirate crews in the area. Sam kept his own history quiet; made out like it the Avery thing was just an interest, like he was some sort of researcher and not an uneducated, transient, treasure-hunting thief. Dimitris started calling him _Erudito_ and got him to summarise each contraband book he brought Sam as if it were a weekly pop quiz.

But no matter how decent Dimitris appeared, Sam was never quite sure enough to ask for his help. Alliances in the prison were shaky at the best of times – especially with a guard. Sure, they acted like your buddy when it suited them, but it paid not to forget about the truncheon and gun strapped to their hip. It paid not to forget whose payroll they were on. He’d seen guards knock down a prisoner for speaking too familiarly when just the day before they’d been laughing and joking together. 

In the end, it had been Dimitris who brought it up. One afternoon in the basement they’d been talking about pirate hierarchy – about loyalty amongst thieves and the many times that loyalty had been screwed over by pirates hoping for a bigger cut of the treasure - and out of nowhere the guard said, “You have a brother?”

Sam nodded slowly but didn’t look up from his work.

“And the other one, your friend – Adler.” 

An ember of rage flickered inside Sam when he thought of Rafe. “Yeah. Not my friend,” he growled. 

“They must wonder…” Dimitris said, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging in the air. 

Sam’s throat tightened. It had been a long time since he’d talked about Nathan to anyone – and even then it had been with the warden, reminding Sam that he didn't exist. 

“I’m sure they’ve forgotten all about me by now,” Sam murmured.

He could feel Dimitris’s eyes on him from all the way across the room.

“Hmm,” the guard said, in a tone that made it clear he didn’t believe Sam in the slightest. “Well.  _I_ would wonder, if it was _my_ brother.”

Sam risked a look, to see if he was goading him, but Dimitris’s face was open and sympathetic.

“Even if they told you he was dead?” Sam said wryly.

Dimitris shrugged. “Maybe there’s a way to let him know that you’re not.” He said it so casually that Sam just stared at him, hardly daring to hope that it was an offer of help. It could just as easily be a trap. Break down his defences, play the long game, then show him an opening and pounce the moment he took it. Or maybe he was just paranoid.

He opted for downplaying it, anyway, making it into a joke, just in case. “What, like semaphore? Smoke signals? Advanced, trans-continental telepathy?”

Dimitris smirked and tossed him a cigarette. “Maybe... think a little simpler.”

Sam lit the smoke and inhaled, resting against the wall for a second. His pulse was jumping in his neck. His hands were twitching with adrenaline. He caught the guard’s eye and held it. _Now or never. Trust your gut. Put it out there and see if he’s lying._

“I’d need help to get it to him,” he said slowly.

Dimitris gave a grunt in reply, then: “I’m due a trip to the library next week. Why don’t you put together a list of books for me, huh?”

Sam nodded. They were at no risk of being overheard down here but there was a kind of prison code where no one really said what they meant anyway. This was probably the best he could hope for. He just hoped he wasn’t setting himself up for a fall.

 

*     *     *

 

The hand-off went without a hitch. Dimitris came to his cell as usual to collect the books due for return and gave a non-committal “uh huh” when Sam passed over his ‘list’. It wasn’t the letter itself, obviously, but he was banking on Dimitris having the brains to figure out the clues he’d put into it. Two of the books on the list included ones he was sending back to the library, and next to each title was a page reference, disguised as its publication date. In one book he’d hidden the letter – a single page covered front and back in the tiniest script he could manage, and in Latin, no less – and in the other, on a scrap of leftover paper, the address to Nathan’s P.O box.

Then came the wait. He hadn’t realised just how much he’d given up on ever hearing from his brother again. The warden had done a thorough job of convincing Sam he was a walking dead man. He drifted through the next two days in a daze, chain smoking, barely eating, sleeping even less, daydreaming about a reply from Nathan – even just a word, a line, some kind of sign that he’d got the message and he was coming for him. And then the devil on his shoulder... What if he never heard back? What if Nathan didn’t want to know? What if he’d abandoned the P.O box or got himself thrown in some other jail the other side of the world, or worse – got into a situation he couldn’t get out of without his big brother to watch his back?

He kept an eye out for Dimitris but there was no sign of him and he didn't dare ask another guard where he'd gone. He tried to keep his panicked thoughts from escalating – maybe it was just his day off, maybe he was just working a different block, maybe he hadn’t even had a chance to send the letter yet – but Sam knew something had gone horribly wrong when the alarm sounded for work detail and his cell remained locked. He watched through the bars as his neighbours trailed off down the stairs and the guards loitered on the walkway, glancing over at him occasionally with sickening smiles that promised something unpleasant in his future. 

“What the fuck you done now?” Sam’s cellmate grumbled at him, leaning against the door and giving him an irritated glance.

Sam retreated slowly to the back of his cell and sat on his bed, dread pooling in his stomach. A cold sweat climbed his spine and left him trembling. His cellmate waved out through the bars and yelled something in Spanish at the nearest guard who came over at a lazy pace.

“You wanna get the door, man?” Sam’s cellmate barked.

The guard eyed the prisoner for a second before pointing at Sam. “You. Stay where you are,” the guard snapped, even though Sam had no intention of moving. He kept his eyes down, staring at his shaking hands, his mind blank of any potential excuse that might get him out of this one.

His cellmate looked curiously over at him, knowing better than to ask any more questions. You could sense danger in here. The guard unlocked the door, yanking the prisoner out and slamming it shut again.

"Hey, good luck," Sam's cellmate said under his breath as he joined the line of men heading out of the block. Sam was frozen in place, but jerked a nod in reply.

Five minutes later and Sam was entirely alone, the distant clanging of doors signalling that the rest of the prisoners had been siphoned off to their various jobs and duties. 

Alone, that is, aside from the guards.

He heard them approaching, heavy boots on the metal walkway sending echoes through the concrete block.

Panic surged through Sam’s veins. The walls of his cell closed in and his head dropped to his knees as he tried to gather his breath. _No. This was not how they were going to find him. He’d meet them on his feet, at least._ He dragged himself upright and stood at his full height in the centre of the cell, squeezing his hands into fists – not to fight, but to stop them from betraying him with their shaking. 

Five men came into view behind the bars – four guards and the warden. One of them unlocked the cell and they crowded the doorway, not enough room for all of them in the tiny space, but utterly blocking any hope of escape. 

“Samuel!” The warden greeted him with a jovial smile. Sam glared back, suddenly feeling remarkably calm – right inside the eye of the storm.

“Not working today?” the warden asked, as if it had been Sam’s fault the cell door had stayed locked.

“I guess not,” Sam replied. Two of the guards were edging closer to him, flanking him. He ignored them. There was no way of stopping what was about to happen. He just had to ride it out.

The warden tutted. “Dimitris is not working today either. The pair of you. Lazy, lazy, lazy. Always in your books,” he added, picking up a paperback from Sam’s bed and turning it over in his hands for a moment before slowly and methodically ripping out page after page, letting them flutter to the ground at Sam’s feet.

“Interesting book list you gave him this week, I hear,” the warden continued. “But I’m afraid your library privileges have been revoked. Indefinitely.” He tossed the ruined book to Sam, who caught it reflexively – at the very same moment the guard on his left drove a fist into his side.

He dropped to one knee, slipping on the loose pages that covered the floor, and the guard on the right took his turn, backhanding him across the jaw with his baton. Concrete grazed his cheek as he thudded to the floor, head reeling. He stilled his breathing and stayed put, on his belly, tracking the feet that circled him. Blood trickled into his eye and he blinked it away. He could get through this. He knew how to take a beating. This is how it goes. They take turns venting their petty frustrations with fists and boots and truncheons. They’re not imaginative – it’s all about brute force and making themselves feel in charge. They make you bleed and they make you beg. They make you get up then they knock you down again. He knew the steps. He could play the game.

“You seem to forget,” the warden said, right on cue for the next taunt, “that you are a dead man, Mr Drake. Dead men tell no tales. And they certainly don’t send any letters.”

Sam dragged himself to his hands and knees, counting silently in his head for the next strike: _one, two, three…_

A kick caught him in the stomach and sent him sprawling against the bed frame. _Yup. Right on time._

“Get up,” one of the guards snapped, hauling him up with a handful of shirt. Sam stumbled against his captor and received a shove in return, rebounding off the wall and straight into the next punch.

_Hey floor. We meet again._

He hauled in a breath and let it out with a groan, wiping a sleeve across his bleeding nose.

He lifted his head off the ground to peer up at them with a lopsided grin. “How long is this gonna take, guys?” he said, in a voice like gravel. “Y’know, I’ve got places to be…”

The warden’s shoes passed in front of his face and a baton pressed down against his temple, pushing his face back down to the floor. Someone grabbed his arms and twisted them behind his back. Sam gritted his teeth against the pain. The warden smiled almost sadly at him.

“What did you think would come of the letter? Your little brother would come, guns blazing, stage some grand rescue attempt? You think we would let that happen?" the warden said.

"Yeah? Maybe. You're not our first prison break, sweetheart," Sam replied, tensing even before the retaliation came. And it did. A strike to the side of the head. His chin crunched against the concrete floor and he came up tasting blood. 

"Your brother _did_ come looking, you know,” the warden continued. “Sent his ‘people’ digging around for clues. Didn’t try _too_ hard, of course. And it’s amazing how effective a simple piece of paper can be. Administration, Samuel, that’s what rules the world. One official death certificate and case closed. We even offered to ship your ‘ashes’ home, but nobody came forward to claim them...”

The words were worse than the beating. They pierced him in places a punch couldn't reach. Sam struggled against his captors, to shut the warden up more than anything. One of them stuck a boot in his back but he managed to get his right arm free and hooked it round the back of the nearest knee, bringing a guard down hard. In the confusion Sam scrambled to his feet but the odds were way too long - one against five in a six by ten cell – who’d bet on that? If Nathan had been here they might have had a chance. It was a special kind of luck they had, when they were together. But alone…

_Ah, shit._

They moved in on him as one. He jabbed out with an elbow and heard a satisfying crack behind him but then a guard barrelled into him and he found himself flat on his back on the floor once more, winded, a face full of knuckles, his vision obscured by so many uniformed figures, all eager to leave their mark.

_And this is how it goes. They beat on you. They get bored and tired, eventually. And they leave you in a heap of bruises._

But none of it mattered. None of it hurt, not really – it was nothing compared to the knowledge that Nathan would never get his letter. Never even know he was alive.

Sam sagged in the grip of a guard, barely aware that the violence had paused. He must have passed out at some point. His bottom lip was thick and slick with blood. His left eye had swollen closed. Every breath felt like a knife in his ribs. His head spun. They were out of the cell now, out of the block, halfway down a corridor; two of the guards dragging him between them, two behind, the warden walking ahead. Sam knew this part of the prison only too well. He knew where they were headed. Solitary. He let his head hang and made them do all the heavy lifting.

When they arrived at _Solitario_ the warden halted the party and turned to peer distastefully at the prisoner.

"Yet again you fail to understand your position here, Mr Drake. You think you’re so clever, don’t you? With your little code, your Latin.” The warden laughed, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him against the wall with a bone-shuddering thud. “Your worthless life belongs to this institution now.Your brother thinks you’re dead. Your country thinks you’re dead. And the world will soon forget about Samuel Drake.” 

A guard opened the cell and the warden threw Sam sideways through the doorway. He didn’t even bother to put out his arms to stop his fall. He rolled into a corner and lay there, breathing heavily into the musty concrete, his head thumping with concussion, his body aching in a million different ways.

The door clanked shut and the last sliver of light disappeared.

That was the moment he decided to stop counting the days. What was the point? They could keep him in here as long as they wanted. They could keep him locked away from daylight for the rest of his miserable life. He didn’t exist any more. He was a nobody. Nothing. _Nada_. The warden's words finally got through his thick head and the last shred of hope died inside him. He was never getting out of here.

 

*    *    * 

 

He woke clawing at the sheets, fighting off invisible assailants and kicking the wall so hard his swearing woke up Nathan.

"Whuh-? Sam? You okay?"

Sam panted into the darkness, trying vainly to remember where he was. A fan whirred above him. The flash of headlights reflected off a TV set fixed to the wall. Standard-issue motel decor. He slumped back into the pillow. "Shit... Yeah, it's nothing."

It was their first night in Madagascar. They'd be heading out on the trail in the morning. Well, it was already morning. Sam's eyes adjusted to the low light and he focused on the maps pinned to the wall - even better, the half finished pack of beer sitting on the desk below them. He slipped out of bed and cracked one open, sitting heavily in the chair in front of the desk.

He heard Nathan sit up in his own bed. "Panama?" he said quietly.

Sam sighed. Nightmares were nothing new to either of them but that didn't mean they had to talk about it. He made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat and chugged the beer.

"It's... gonna take time," Nathan said.

Sam laughed scathingly. "Time... Had enough of that."

Nathan took a breath, as if he was about to say something else, then seemed to think better of it. 

"Go back to sleep," Sam said, like they were kids and he was playing the responsible guardian all over again.

He waited until he heard his brother turn over and lit up a cigarette, staring at the glowing circle until his eyes watered.

"Hey," came Nathan's voice, small and far away from under the covers. "I'm sorry."

A surge of brotherly protectiveness swept over Sam, washed over with the deepest kind of guilt. "Don't-"

"I should have tried harder. I should've... I dunno," Nathan said. "I couldn't believe you were gone, but-"

"I know, I know," Sam cut in softly. "You did what you had to do. You needed to move on."

"Still. I'm sorry."

Sam had to take a long drag of his cigarette before he trusted his voice again. "Yeah. Me too, little brother. Me too."

 

*     *     * 

 

They drove on through the rusty Madagascan clay in silence, though Sam caught his brother glancing back at him in the rearview mirror more than once - something like concern in his eyes. The pity was more than Sam could bear. He even tried cracking a pirate joke just to break the tension but it went down like a lead balloon. 

Nathan knew. Sam could tell. He’d always been terrible at lying to his little brother, or at least terrible at getting away with it. Nathan might not know the real truth but he damn well sure knew that Sam wasn’t telling him everything.

But how could he possibly understand? Thirteen years in that place, even if he’d been in there legitimately, would have been enough to break him. But thirteen years as a ghost… He would have done anything to get out, and ruining his brother’s trust was something he’d just have to live with. 

Sam leaned back against the scalding leather of the backseat and closed his eyes once more, turning his face towards the sun. It didn’t matter now. He was free. They'd get the treasure. Then none of this would matter at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That throwaway line about the sympathetic guard and the ill-fated letter? Here's my take. Mainly prompted by Sam saying, "I got busted pretty bad," and clearly underplaying the whole thing. Because of course he is. It's Sam.


	3. Libertalia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam faces Nadine, Rafe, his little brother, and the truth. It does not go well.

Sam dragged himself up through the half-collapsed building, the white noise of explosions still reverberating in his head. The last few minutes had gone by in a flash of fire, crumbling brickwork and whining bullets. Just how much explosives did Shoreline have? And did they ever consider, you know,  _not_ blowing things up? The last grenade had thrown Nathan off a ledge and sent him sliding down a muddy gully. Sam only had a moment to worry about him before the next round of gunfire began, but as he dodged his way through the ruins he caught sight of his brother clambering up the side of an overgrown building and the ever-present ache of anxiety in his chest faded slightly. Nathan could take care of himself. He'd been doing it just fine without him for fifteen years.

He reached an empty room and dropped down onto the bare, cracked floorboards as quietly as he could. There were voices below him. He held his breath and crouched behind a broken wall, straining to listen. Shoreline? A woman's voice. Nadine. And... _Nathan_. Through a gap in the floor he could see his brother lying on his back, a gun at his head, Nadine standing over him. 

“Shame we’re not on the same side,” Nadine said. 

“Wait, there’s still time...” his brother tried.

“Trust a Drake?” The woman all but spat at Nathan, “I’m not falling for that again.”

 _Again._ Warning bells rang in Sam’s head and he felt a lurch of guilt that what sparked him into action was not the fact that his brother was being held at gunpoint but the risk of Nadine telling him the truth. Either way, the outcome was the same. He broke through the rotten floorboards and came crashing down on top of her, hoping to any god or pirate ghost that might be listening that she wouldn’t reflexively pull the trigger on Nathan.

They crumpled to the floor and rolled in opposite directions, but before he could get up she whipped a leg around and caught him full in the face with one of those army-issue, steel-capped boots. Sam’s world spun wildly for a moment, and when he looked up again the whole outer wall of the room had disappeared and Nathan and Nadine were tumbling down the rooftops outside.

He hauled himself to his feet with a grumble of pain – brand new bruises to add to his collection – and shook the dizziness out of his head. _Can't we just stay in one place for one damn second without getting ambushed or shot at or thrown through windows?_

He followed them down the rickety slope to the next building – they’d fallen through the ceiling and were continuing their argument as if nothing had happened, except perhaps a little more battered and dishevelled than before. 

“After everything,” Nadine said, out of breath, obviously squaring up for another fight, “you think I’m just gonna let you walk away?”

Sam dropped to the floor beside his brother. “That’d be the wise thing to do,” he said quietly. Dangerously.

Nadine evidently didn't agree.

It didn’t matter that there were two of them. It didn’t matter that she was a woman. He’d seen her fight before. The only possible thing he and Nathan had in their favour was a lifetime of prison yard, backstreet scraps where there were no rules and the only aim was to distract your opponent long enough to get the hell out of there.

It didn’t work against Nadine. Sam swiftly received a roundhouse to the face and found himself on the floor in a pile of old pottery and splinters. By the time got himself upright again she had Nathan across a desk, driving relentless fists and knees into his unprotected ribs again and again.

“I’m sick of this island. I’m sick of your brother. And I’m sick… of _you_!” she yelled, emphasising her words with every strike. Sam stumbled to the rescue but met Nadine’s elbow instead. _How does she do that?_

She knocked Nathan to the floor with a backhand strike and then it was Sam’s turn. It was all he could do to try and block her as she pummelled at him – precise strikes that knocked the wind out of him and left him reeling. He was not going to win this fight. “Nathan!” he yelled, and slumped to the floor on all fours as his brother barrelled into her. 

Then: another crash through a window. Another flying brother. And it was just him and Nadine. She’d never liked him. Never trusted him. It wasn't as if she had the moral high ground - she did what she did for money, no different from him - the only difference was he was paying off a debt, while she was getting paid. Maybe she'd always known he was going to rabbit and renege on his deal with Rafe. She had a strange sense of loyalty, he'd give her that. 

She grinned a cold grin at him and took up a stance once more.

“Now hold on just a second-” he began, but she was already moving.

 _Fuck._  

By the time Nathan made his way back to the fight she had her arm tight around Sam’s throat, half-choking him out. It all happened too fast. He looked up and Nathan was jumping towards them and the floor was collapsing and they were outside in bright sunshine once more, right at the edge of a cliffside. A brief scramble and there was a gun in Sam’s hand; there was Rafe, laughing at him with his infuriatingly smug expression; there was a stand-off, and his pistol pressed against Nadine’s head. _It wasn’t supposed to go this way._

“Sam, put the gun down,” Nathan entreated. Sam didn’t even acknowledge him. He was acting crazy, he knew. He’d lost control. He was _on edge_. And he was an idiot to think he’d ever get away with any of this: trusting Rafe, double-crossing Rafe, feeding out lie after lie to his brother...

Rafe snorted at the idea that Sam would pull the trigger but Nadine clearly didn’t doubt it as he pushed the barrel harder into her temple. Nathan could tell he wasn’t kidding either, edging closer to his brother with a stunned expression on his face.

And Sam? He genuinely had no idea. For a moment he let the concept play out. It would only take a squeeze of his finger and no more Nadine. Nathan wouldn't even have the time to pass judgement because Rafe’s henchmen would open fire on the pair of them and they’d go down together, like they were always meant to, like Butch and Sundance in a moment of freeze-frame glory… 

But he didn’t get the chance to end it his way. Rafe took another step forward, Nathan yanked Sam’s arm back, the gun fired into the air, Nadine’s elbow caught him in the gut, driving a grunt out of him, and it was all over. 

“There, it’s done,” Nathan breathed. “It’s done.”

Rafe smiled his smug little smile and sauntered over, brushing dust off Sam’s shoulders. “Samuel. You okay? I guess you knew this moment was coming, huh?”

The butt of Rafe’s pistol slammed into Sam’s face and he dropped to the ground, blood exploding from his nose.

“Hey, c’mon man,” Nathan said softly, “You already got us, take it easy.” 

Sam probed gingerly at the fresh wounds across his nose and forehead as his brother moved to protect him. Stupid Nathan, always playing the hero. If he knew… If he only knew, he’d be giving Sam a few punches of his own… 

“You’re a business man,” Nate continued, “Let’s just… work out a deal.”

“Oh, a deal?” Rafe’s voice was full of vicious amusement. “Oh yeah, I’d love to hear what you have in _mind_.” With his last word, Rafe lashed out again, kicking Sam full in the face. He rolled over, groaning, head reeling.

As Nathan pulled him to his feet, Sam’s mind raced. He was bleeding, bruised, and fuzzy headed, but he could hear the two of them talking about the treasure, Nathan bargaining, trying to buy some time. But as soon as Nathan mentioned Alcázar, he knew it was over.

“Nathan…” he tried, but it was too late.

Nathan looked confused. Looked like a little kid again, trying to figure out what the hell Rafe was talking about. “What-?”

Rafe gave a humourless laugh. “Ohhhhh. Wow. What did he tell you?” Then, to Sam, “You _lied_? You lied to your baby brother?”

Sam turned his face away. The blood was dripping down his nose and into his mouth. He pressed his fingers into the gash, punishing himself with the pain.

His brother’s face contorted as the truth sunk in. The Alcázar story was bullshit. Two long years Sam had been out, hiding from his brother. Letting him believe he was dead.

 _Jesus, Nathan’s face._ Sam wanted to throw up. How could he explain? The debt he owed Rafe – the debt Rafe never stopped reminding him of, for two long years. The story was half true. He’d been locked into a doomed deal the moment he stepped out of prison. The only difference was that he’d lied willingly – not to protect his brother but because he was too much of a coward to explain the truth.

He took a step towards him, “Avery’s treasure was ours, it was always ours.”  
  
His brother pushed him away in disgust. “I left my life for you!”

His life. His perfect, boring life with a wife and a house and a steady job and no reckless, idiot brother around to fuck it up. Sam had told himself he was saving Nathan from a dull future full of paperwork and taxes and domestic monotony but really he was just doing what he always did – selfishly dragging his little brother into another stupid, dangerous situation. And for what? To play at pirates? To prove themselves worthy of their stolen name? 

He barely registered the fact that Rafe’s gun was trained on him. _End it_ , Nadine said, and Sam was inclined to agree. _Why not just end it all now?_  There could be nothing waiting for him in hell that was worse than the look on Nathan’s face right now.

And despite everything, Nathan was still trying to strike a deal. “You need us,” he told Rafe.

The gun lowered. “You’re right. Well, you’re half right." He raised the pistol once more, "I just need Sam.”

Rafe's arm swung towards Nathan and everything happened in painful slow motion. “Rafe, don’t! Rafe, don’t, don’t, listen-!” Sam yelled, sidestepping across the clifftop to put himself in front of his brother.

The impact of the shot knocked him backwards, jolting into Nathan. Sam looked down in surprise at the blood streaming from his arm just in time to see his brother tumbling down towards the rocks below. 

“Nathan!” he screamed, throat raw with desperation, but Nate’s body disappeared into the water with a splash. Rafe’s goons grabbed hold of Sam’s arms and shoved him back towards the cave, kicking and yelling and attempting to hurl himself over the edge to get to his baby brother. A kick brought him to his knees and the muzzle of a gun poked into the back of his head but still he fought. “Nathan! Rafe, please. Let me go down there. Please, _please_ , just let me help him.”

Rafe’s eyes were devoid of pity. He strode over to the cliff and peered down with a shrug. “He’s gone, Sam. And we have a job to do. We had a _deal_ , remember?”

“Fuck your deal.”

Rafe gave a throaty chuckle. “Yeah, that’s you all over, isn’t it, Sam? Trust no one. Screw everyone. Even your own brother,” he tutted, shaking his head.

Sam’s battered brain scrambled for an angle. He fell to his hands and knees, breathing hard. “Rafe, listen. I will do… whatever you want me to do. Just _please-_ ”

But Rafe was immovable. His men were already moving out, dragging Sam along with them. Only Nadine paused to look back at him, a conflicted look on her face. He didn’t care that tears were raking channels through the mud on his cheeks. He didn’t care about the throbbing, aching wound in his arm or his possibly broken nose. He didn’t care about long-dead captain pirates or piles of golden treasure or fame and fortune. None of it mattered if Nathan wasn't there to share it with him.

He grabbed one last glance over his shoulder at the empty clifftop before they hauled him into the ruins of Libertalia, half expecting Nathan’s goofy head to pop up over the edge but there was nothing but the sea, stretching out to oblivion, and the ghosts of the island, whispering to him of betrayal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of my absolute favourite encounters in the game. Running, jumping, fighting, omfg! It's also where you go 'ohhhh shit' and suddenly realise all the times Sam has had to skirt around any kind of clue that might make Nathan link him to Rafe and Nadine. SO MUCH LYING, SAM. (Honestly, how they totally failed to spot him disguised as a waiter in the auction house is completely beyond me, but that's a whole different story.)


	4. New Devon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam leaves breadcrumbs for Nathan...

After a while he stopped struggling. There was no point. They didn’t even bother to tie him up – there were enough heavily armed, impatient Shoreline soldiers left to prevent any suggestion of slipping away quietly. They trailed back through the colony in near silence, except for Nadine who stopped occasionally to collude with her second in command, Orca, about the route to New Devon.

They moved in a convoy of trucks and 4x4s, and Sam sat squashed between two heavily armoured thugs in the back of a flatbed, every bump and jostle of the road making his shoulder twinge. Rafe sat up front with the driver, turning round every so often to flash Sam a shit-eating grin and stoke the fire of his urge for revenge. Sam’s hands twitched in his lap as he wondered whether he’d be able to wrest a weapon from one of his captors and loose a round into Rafe’s stupid, self-entitled face before they took him down. It wasn’t a seamless plan, but it was all he could think about as they headed north, over increasingly ornate bridges and past rickety structures that looked like wooden elevators.

They took the easiest paths, he noticed, probably because they had so much junk to carry: flight cases full of explosives and weaponry; food and water; a whole bunch of high tech stuff that Sam didn’t recognise or care to find out about; camping equipment, even. They were in it for the long haul. It made his and Nathan’s low-budget expedition preparations look positively amateur. But despite all that, Rafe’s group moved pretty quickly – simply blowing up anything that they couldn’t manoeuvre around.

Once they passed beyond of the borders of the colony they stopped for a moment to gather their bearings. A merc with a medi-pack climbed into Sam’s truck and applied a hurried field dressing to the wound on his arm. The bullet had zipped right past his left shoulder, leaving a neat, deep track in its wake, but he hardly acknowledged the pain. That bullet had been meant for Nathan, but even throwing himself in front of it hadn’t saved his brother.

 _He’s gone._  

The helplessness overwhelmed him. It was a sick sort of irony; a bitter taste of what Nathan must have felt after Panama, leaving Sam for dead. And, he realised, with a flash of rage, once again Rafe was the one common thread of their misfortunes. Rafe was the one who screwed everything up. Rafe was the one who murdered Vargas and sparked off their ill-fated prison break. Rafe was the one who’d made him promise not to contact his brother after he bought him out of jail. Rafe was the one who’d made him lie. Rafe was the one who’d killed his brother. The words tasted like bile in his mouth.

“Samuel?” Rafe stretched an arm back over his seat to click his fingers in front of Sam’s face. “You still with us?”

Sam blinked back at him with a blank sort of hatred, imagining wrapping his hands around Rafe’s neck and pressing his thumbs into his windpipe.

“Just like old times, huh?” Rafe smirked, “You and me – we were always the brains of the operation. Your brother only ever held you back, you know that, right?”

Sam jerked out of his seat and threw himself towards Rafe, a raw bundle of wrath and vengeance, but he’d barely taken a step before the soldiers were on him. One shoved a forearm into Sam’s throat, forcing him back down onto the bench. Two more grabbed hold of his arms and pinned him down.

Rafe cackled with laughter, shaking a finger at him, “You’ve got balls. I respect that, Sam. I do. But you are _not_ cut out for playing the hero.”

The truck jolted forward once more and Rafe turned back around, but Sam never once took his eyes off him.

*     *     *

He’d never been so happy to hear gunshots in his life. They sounded close, too. Down by the river, a little behind the convoy.

Gunshots meant someone other than Shoreline was on the island. And the only other person they could possibly be shooting at was-

_Nathan. He’s alive._

Sam's heart rate doubled and a rush of endorphins soared through him. Nathan was still out there. 

The crackle of the truck radio gave way to a hurried report from one of the Shoreline patrols and Rafe started swearing at the top of his voice.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Sam said, unable to wipe the relieved smile off his face, and revelling in the pissed off expression on Rafe's.

“Not for long,” Rafe growled back, jabbing an accusatory finger at him. “I am _not_ gonna let you or your brother fuck this up for me any more.”

But he was worried, that much was clear. Sam could see it. Nadine could see it. The soldiers could see it. And an uncertain leader made for an unstable force...

It was Sam’s turn for the shit-eating grin. 

“You better hurry then,” he goaded, “'Cause Nathan has a real talent for fucking things up.”

*     *     *

All he had to do was stall them, give Nathan a little time to catch up, or get ahead, even. He had to believe that his brother was coming back for him and not the treasure - but either way it didn't matter. He had something to fight for now - to get back to Nathan and explain, properly explain, about the last two years. To apologise. Beg forgiveness. Whatever it took. And fulfil their goddamn destiny, together, the way it was always meant to be.

The trucks slowed as the mansions of New Devon came into view, and soon they were at the edge of the sprawling township. The convoy stopped and Nadine deployed her troops throughout the cluster of houses. The men were twitchy and paranoid, starting at every noise in the jungle surrounding them. A soldier dragged Sam out of the truck and pushed him towards the overgrown track down to the manor houses, "You're up, expert." 

Rafe sidled up to him as he gazed out over the flooded ruins. Sam scowled. This was a view he should be sharing with Nathan, and he felt his temper flare as Rafe put a comradely arm around his shoulder. Sam tried to shake him off but Rafe held on with an fierce grip, digging his fingers into the tender flesh of his wounded arm. Sam seethed in a hissing breath at the pain but didn't give Rafe the satisfaction of crying out.

“Here we are. The captain’s playground," Rafe drawled, spreading an arm across the vista. “So, which one is it, Sam? Where’s our treasure at?”

Sam made a show of studying the buildings carefully, even though he’d already picked out the sigils and worked out which one must be Avery’s. “Hard to say,” he said, prompting a barking laugh from Rafe.

“I’ll bet. You know," he said, turning Sam to face him and inspecting the gash across his nose like a concerned parent. "For every delay you cause me, I'm gonna have Nadine break another bone. After all, it's only your brilliant brain we need." Rafe flicked Sam in the forehead, right where he'd kicked him, and snickered at Sam's involuntary wince.

_Just stay alive. Stay alive until you find Nathan or he finds you and then you can take this prick down together._

Sam took a calming breath to stop himself doing something stupid. "That one," he pointed. 

"Atta boy." Rafe grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and shoved him down the track in front of him. "See? Cooperation. A little respect. Is it really that hard?" 

*     *     *

The gunfire was closer now. Shouts rose above the trees and Sam swore he even heard the sound of a light aircraft overhead at one point. He was doing his best to leave a trail for his brother, still prickling with excitement and relief at the knowledge that Nathan was alive. Whenever Rafe and Nadine deferred to his advice he led them through the most circuitous paths, stopping to examine everything he could in each room, tracking as much mud as he could through the hallways.

They had to go through Tew's manor first, as the route to Avery's was blocked. Sam slowed in genuine awe when they came across the pirate dinner party but he couldn't enjoy the discovery without Nathan and Rafe had absolutely no interest in the historical side of the expedition. He was becoming more and more infuriated every moment.

"So they double-crossed their partners, deja fucking vu," Rafe ranted, with a special glare at Sam. "And what, Samuel, did they do with the treasure?"

Sam was still examining the table and couldn't stop himself from letting out a tiny breath of disbelief as he came across a letter signed by Avery himself.

"What the hell is that?" Rafe snapped, snatching it out of his grip and scanning it impatiently. "A secret passage, huh? Of course. Goddamn pirates. And that'll be at Avery's place, right?"

Sam gave a non-committal shrug.

Rafe railed on his men instead, "Well? What are you waiting for?"

But before they could move an explosion sounded from outside, close enough for them to hear the screams of men caught in the blast. Rafe grabbed hold of the nearest merc and stabbed an angry finger at the window. "Get out there and get rid of them," he yelled, before turning on Nadine with a vicious expression. "Tell me, what, exactly, do I pay you for if a handful of petty thieves are able to outsmart your entire army, huh?"

"I told you we should have secured the area before beginning the search-" Nadine replied in a level voice, but behind her the soldiers were starting to look uneasy.

"It's just one guy! And his little journalist wife!" Rafe exclaimed, incredulous.

Sam faltered. _Wait, Elena's here? That's gonna complicate things._

"If you'd just let me do my job..." Nadine began, with a look like lightning, and pulled Rafe over to the far side of the room to continue the argument in lower tones.

Sam took the opportunity to pocket Avery's letter, leaning over to whisper in the ear of the nearest hired thug, "Mom and Dad fighting again, huh?" The soldier gave him a shove that almost knocked him off his feet but nothing could spoil Sam's good mood right now.

Rafe and Nadine didn't seem to come to any sort of agreement but after a moment of furious whispering they parted and Nadine ordered her men to barricade the door behind them. Sam slipped the letter into the bony hand of a pirate skeleton before he was herded down the corridor, praying to all the saints he could name that Nathan would notice. As he turned the corner he almost walked right into Nadine's lieutenant, Orca, who was barking down his radio. 

"-circle back around. The entryway. They'll have to come through that way," the mercenary said, "I want heavy artillery down there. And no survivors."

Sam passed him slowly, dread creeping into his guts. Nathan and Elena would walk right into the waiting ambush. They'd be trapped, and there was nothing he could do but trust the stupid dumb luck that had got them this far and keep leaving breadcrumbs for his little brother to follow.

*      *      * 

Another gunfight. This time it was deafening. Nathan and Elena must have walked straight into the trap. Sam kept his eyes fixed on Nadine and Orca as they relayed orders and updates by radio during the battle, desperate for a clue to how it might be panning out – if there was any hope at all – but the soldiers' faces were blank and professional, even when it sounded like the whole damn manor was coming down around their ears. But when the last explosion finally died away Sam was rewarded with twin looks of dismay as they faced radio silence, failing to get through to the troop who'd been laying in wait. Sam didn't dare breathe. No news had to be good news, right? There was a chance Nathan and Elena had made it out of there. Maybe they’d slipped past the trap and found a different way through. Or made a stand and somehow, against ridiculous odds, come away in one piece…

Rafe's anger became a barometer for Sam’s hope. The more frustrated Rafe became, the more risks he'd take, and sooner or later there might be an opportunity for either revenge or escape. Rafe was lashing out at anyone near him, and Nadine had begun to look increasingly uneasy at his behavior. Sam watched her thoughtfully. Maybe there was an angle there. Maybe an alliance of sorts, despite the fact that she detested him – no matter how she felt about Sam and Nathan at least they weren’t spoiled, vicious, and batshit crazy.

They reached another dead end at Avery’s place - an ornate chamber with a huge starburst pattern on the floor - finding no apparent leads to whatever passage Avery had referred to in his letter. Rafe focused all his ire on Sam, reaching breaking point. "So where the hell is it?" he yelled, fists curling around Sam's collar, his face contorted with rage. "This is his goddamn mansion, right? So where’s the treasure? Where is it?" Rafe threw him to the floor and turned to the Shoreliners, a wild look in his eyes. "Search every corner. Every inch."

Sam lay still for a moment on the cool marble, in no particular hurry to get back up and receive another earful of Rafe’s tantruming, and suddenly there it was - that glittering moment of discovery that never failed to kindle excitement in the pit of his belly. A faint breeze, coming from almost imperceptible joins in the floor; regular spiraling seams in the tile that looked like...  _Holy shit..._ _A hidden staircase._

"If it's anything like Scotland there'll be some kind of mechanism," Nadine said behind him, inspecting the wall hangings for secret levers. Sam cursed her logic and carefully slid his lighter out of his pocket and underneath a table for Nathan to find. Another breadcrumb to say: _You’re on the right track, little brother._

An unexpected kick to his ribs drove all the wind out of him and he curled reflexively into a ball. "Get the fuck back up and find me this passage," Rafe snarled. "That's what you came for, isn't it? So do your job."

Sam climbed gingerly to his feet and gave a weary sigh, well aware the fact that his delay tactics were stretching thin. "Maybe we missed something in one of those other rooms…" he tried, but Rafe was past negotiation.

"Nadine," Rafe snapped, like he was trying to bring a dog to heel. She didn't move. Rafe blinked at her. " _Nadine._ I need you to give Sam a little... motivation."

She considered the order for a moment, staring coolly at Sam, then shook her head. "We're wasting time-"

Rafe's face turned livid. He spun to Nadine’s lieutenant instead. "Orca!" The soldier stepped to attention immediately. Rafe extended a hand towards Sam, "If you wouldn't mind?"

Orca's armoured fist drove into Sam's stomach and he folded with a breathless groan. Rafe crouched down beside him and watched him struggle for breath, yanking back his head with a fistful of hair. "Find. Me. The passage. Find. Me. My treasure."

_Buy some time. Let Nathan catch up. Do what you have to._

Sam sucked in a lungful of air and braced himself for the inevitable backlash for what he was about to say. "You see, that's your problem, Rafe. Why you keep getting stuck. Avery's puzzles - he made them to be solved by only the  _worthy_."

Rafe was dumbstruck for a second, then gave a dry, sarcastic laugh. "Oh Sam..."

He signaled to Orca again and a crashing blow reopened the cut on Sam's nose. Sam lost his vision for a moment as white noise exploded behind his eyes. If his nose hadn’t been broken before, it certainly was now. He was back on the floor, that subtle, dusty breeze tickling at his face, teasing at the secrets that lay beneath. He smiled crookedly. They were right on top of it and they'd never know. Nathan couldn't be too far behind now. If he could just keep Rafe here until-

_Holy mother of shit, that one hurt._

This wasn't like a prison beating. The Panamanian guards knew they had to hold back a little; had to keep you in once piece. In jail, the abuse the guards handed out was mostly posturing; showing you who's boss; doing enough damage that you flinched next time you passed them, but not so much they'd have to fill out paperwork. The warden wanted him kept alive, if only to enact his revenge more slowly.

This wasn't like that at all. Orca was methodical. He took his time and targeted specific parts of Sam's body for maximum effect. Kidneys. Ribs. His wounded arm. His already battered face. Pressure points Sam didn’t even know he had. And in between each hit, Rafe’s whining voice, demanding answers.

He wasn’t sure how long it lasted, only that when it stopped he was on his knees, head sagging forward, blood dripping from his face to the floor, and not entirely sure how he was still semi-upright. He peered up warily through one swollen eye. Nadine had a hand on Orca’s upraised arm, stopping it from falling. “You’ll kill him,” she said shortly.

Then, to Rafe, “You need him, still.”

Rafe was breathing hard, even though it had been Orca who’d been doing the beating. “Yeah, ‘cause he’s being so incredibly helpful right now.”

Nadine took a step towards Sam. “Up,” she ordered.

Surprising even himself, Sam obeyed, though it took him a while to negotiate around all the bruised parts of him to do so.

“You want to find this treasure?” she asked.

Sam gave the tiniest of nods. _But not with you._

“You want to get off this island?”

Another nod.

“You want to find your idiot brother?”

“Yes,” he croaked.

“Then show us where the passageway is.”

“I don’t know-“

“And stop stalling.”

He paused. “I don’t know how to open it,” he clarified. _That much was true, at least_. “There’s a staircase set into the floor, there.”

Rafe’s face lit up with an unpleasant sort of hunger and he studied the tiles, laughing in disbelief. “He’s right, we just need to find the switch.”

A fresh flurry of activity swept through the room as the soldiers fanned out, but Nadine stopped them with a sharp “Wait!” She was watching Sam with a curious, almost desperate expression. _She wants to get out of here just as bad as you do._ “Any ideas, Drake?” she said.

Sam cast his eyes around the room, staggering a little as he moved. A mild concussion, maybe. He wouldn’t be remotely surprised considering the amount of times he’d been whacked in the head recently. He blinked to clear his vision and made a careful, practiced appraisal of the area. It would have to be something fixed. Something you wouldn’t normally move around that much. Hidden in plain sight but not easily knocked or activated. Something specific, and, if he knew Avery, also totally obvious once you knew what you were looking for.

Rafe and the others let him work in silence, trailing his fingers across ornaments and furniture as he paced a slow perimeter around the starburst motif on the floor. _It’s the sun_ , he realised, stopping dead. That’s where the staircase was – he already knew that – but what was the significance of the pattern? What was Avery trying to tell him? His gaze fell on the globe beside the table. The earth turned around the sun. _Ha._ _This is it._

He ran his hands over the sphere, turning it slowly. It was set within a heavy enough frame – who’s to say it wasn’t fixed to the floor, connected to a mechanism below? A long ago memory came stirring up to the surface as he scanned the ancient map. Nathan, playing with a globe just like this in that old lady Evelyn's house, picking countries at random: England, to see Windsor castle, the Soviet Union, to see the Red Square, India, to see the Taj Mahal… They’d never made it to any of them, though they'd traveled a lot of places since – admittedly most of the time they’d been roughing it on backstreets or killing time in prison – but they’d done it together. That had always been the most important thing. Together, dreaming of the day they finally tracked down the Gunsway haul, finally completed their mother’s research, finally proved themselves.

“Well? Is that it?” Rafe’s voice snapped him out of his reverie.

Sam ignored him and focused more intently on the globe. It couldn’t be activated just by turning it, or it’d be set off every time someone walked past it. No one can resist the tactile pleasure of setting a globe spinning, after all. Maybe it was like a safe, with a specific set of turns, back and forward… No, wait. He leaned in close and felt his pulse thumping in his throat as adrenaline coursed through him. Avery had an obsession with maps. He'd littered his trail with them so far, always pointing to the next clue. He scoured the globe, tracing countries and oceans with his fingers. Yes. There was Madagascar. There was King’s Bay. And there… almost too small to be seen, a cluster of islands that by now looked particularly familiar. _Libertalia._

He drew back immediately, ready to lie, ready to come up with some sort of red herring to throw them off the search but the excitement of his discovery must have been written all over his face.

“That’s it,” Rafe confirmed, shoving him out of the way to study the globe himself. “So? Open it!”

Sam squared up, wiping blood out of his eyes with one shaky hand. “I will, in a minute,” he said quietly, following Nadine’s calm, measured approach to dealing with Rafe's psychosis. “First, just listen… You need me to get to Avery’s treasure. And I’ll help you. I will. But you gotta promise you’ll stop laying traps for Nathan. He’s not coming after the treasure, he’s coming after me.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Rafe retorted.

Sam winced at the echo of his own doubts.

“He’s right,” Nadine said, and Sam had to stop himself gaping at her. “All this…” she gestured around her, “All this bullshit, playing at treasure hunts and hide and seek, it’s just slowing us down. Let’s just get the job done and get the hell out of here. Forget about the other Drake.”

Rafe’s expression was unreadable. He seemed calm enough right now but Sam knew he could flip in an instant. Eventually, he inclined his head to Sam. “All right," he said slowly. "Maybe we can strike a bargain here. How about you give your word to stop leading us down blind alleys?”

“And you’ll leave Nathan alone?”

Rafe sighed theatrically, “Let’s say I won’t actively seek him out, how’s that?”

_That was about good as it was gonna get with Rafe._

Sam nodded, then reached out with one bloody finger and pressed it into the globe, right on top of Libertalia.

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I always wondered what made Sam continue to help Rafe after Nate gets knocked off the cliff. I figured there must have been some serious negotiation/threats going on - plus, Sam couldn't have been sure that Nathan had even survived at first. So. Yeah. Here's my take on it.


	5. Brother's Keeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Brothers Drake, reunited. Except, it's not at all how he planned...

Sam kept his word. At least for a while. He led them carefully through the catacombs of Avery’s descent, afraid to make even a tiny misstep – not out of fear of Rafe, but because he was familiar enough with Avery’s tricks by now to know that one wrong move would be enough to end it all. They moved in near silence, following Sam’s lead, negotiating their way past mummified, explosive-stuffed corpses, trip-wired to blow at the slightest movement; through a cavern strung with skeleton hands that brushed ominously at their shoulders as they passed; constantly having to reroute due to collapsed passageways and blockages. Sam didn't dare try to throw them off the scent - you didn't fuck around with Avery when walking through a maze of booby traps - and the Shoreliners finally seemed to appreciate how useful it was having him along. He even received a grateful slap on the back from Orca after figuring out a trap floor sequence based on the pirate captains’ sigils. He felt pretty smug about that one, he had to admit, especially considering it was Nathan who was good at the puzzle stuff.

Rafe cooled off a little, too, particularly after Sam found Avery’s map of the island. He leaned over Sam's shoulder to gape at it. "X marks the spot, huh?" Sam couldn't help sharing Rafe's grin in the blood-rushing excitement of finally reaching the end of the hunt, despite the ever-present guilt that he should have been doing all of this with Nathan instead. Still, Rafe's guard was definitely starting to drop the closer they got, and Sam kept his eye out for an exit strategy. Nadine, on the other hand, was edgier than ever, clearly unhappy with the way her second in command was fast becoming Rafe’s go-to guy. She trusted Sam about as far as she could through him (which was, to be fair, pretty far) and he was glad she had other things on her mind.

Once or twice they heard explosions again – underground this time, which meant Nathan and Elena had made it into the passage, too. Sam squinted into the darkness behind him, aching for a sign that they were still alive.

*      *      *

It was now or never. The moment Sam smelled fresh salt on the air he knew they must be near the end of the passageway, close to the secret bay where Avery’s ship was moored. The Shoreliners were extra jumpy after dodging cavern after cavern of exploding skeletons and Rafe was single-mindedly flogging them onward, despite the fact that none of them had rested in hours. Sam scouted ahead a little, as ordered - their canary in a mineshaft – and caught a glimpse of daylight beyond the next turn.

_Now or never._

He crouched on the dusty ground and quickly filled his pockets with rocks before doubling back, shaking his head. “It’s blocked up that way, we’ll have to go back to that last fork…”

Rafe let out an impatient grumble but the rest of them obeyed him without question, turning tail and heading back up the trail they’d just come. He’d got them this far and they knew damn well they wouldn’t have survived more than five minutes in the tunnels without his help. They trusted him. Which is why they didn’t concern themselves too much with the fact that Sam was now at the rear of the group.

His fingers tingled with nervous anticipation. This would be his last chance and he'd only get one shot. He waited until they reached a cave half full of jury-rigged mummies and ducked back into the tunnel, grabbing handfuls of rocks from his pockets and hurling them over the soldiers’ heads in as many directions as possible, hoping to hell at least a few of them hit a mummy and set it off. He didn't stop to see if his plan had worked. He was off down the tunnel like a rabbit with a fox on its tail. No one noticed at first - for a moment there were only startled shouts, then the slow, quiet dawning of realisation; finally, a few choice swearwords and the sound of running feet and then-

The explosion knocked Sam off his feet and sent him face-first into the gravelly dirt of the passageway floor. He could hear yelling and footsteps behind him. He scrabbled back to his feet and half-crawled, half-ran the rest of the way to the opening of the cave, to fresh air and open water and… _Holy mother of fuck_ _it’s a ship graveyard._

*      *      *

He didn’t have much of a head start but he did manage to get the jump on the first mercenary to catch up with him, dropping down from a ship’s deck and laying him out with the sheer momentum of his jump. He yanked a pistol out of the merc’s hand and kept going, climbing his way across the wreckages with no real idea of where he was headed so long as it was away from all the gunfire.

He paused for breath behind a rock, dizzy with freedom and shock and the audacity of hoping that things might work out. There were a million hiding places in the bay of broken ships but there were also still way too many Shoreliners for him to deal with on his own. 

_Okay, little brother, this would be a good time to show up._

*      *      *

He’d watched Nathan and Elena work their way across the bay towards him – they must have spotted him already because their route was as direct as they could make it while fending off half an army of Shoreliners. Heart in his mouth and dumb with relief and fear, Sam did his best to cover them, but he was running out of ammo and pinned down on the upper deck of a half-submerged ship, bullets flying from all directions.

“Up there!” Elena yelled, pointing at him, and Sam felt a big, fat, idiot grin crawl across his face as he looked down and saw them both.

“Man, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

Nathan’s grin mirrored his own for a fleeting second before he snapped back into action-mode - just like Sam had taught him - using smart remarks to deflect from having to deal with any kind of emotion. “Yeah," Nathan said, "How ‘bout we get of this damn beach, huh?”

“Absolutely,” Sam nodded, kicking down a rope ladder.

He felt jittery, all of a sudden, as if the events of the last few days were finally catching up with him. He took a few steps back to make space for them to climb the ladder. He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d find in his brother’s face when he reached the top and he couldn’t quite decipher the expression when it came: part relief, part anger, part sadness? All of them seemed legitimate and the guilt in his stomach gnawed deeper. _What the hell did you expect, a hug?_

And what the hell do you say to the brother you almost got shot? The brother you lied to over and over. The brother who trusted you, looked up to you, and followed you to this godforsaken rock in search of shiny things.

He heard the idiotic words come out of his mouth as if they’d been said by someone else. “Hey, did you find my lighter?”

If Nathan replied he didn’t hear it. An RPG blast ripped through the deck and sent them crashing into the stateroom below.

“Shit, we’re sitting ducks in here,” Sam cried, and they scrambled for higher ground.

An unspoken mode of operation passed between the brothers, as it always did when push came to shove. They’d always been a good team, almost reading one another’s minds when they were kids, making split second decisions with nothing more than a flash of eye contact or the briefest of nods. They’d laugh about it afterwards but in the moment itself you could almost feel the crackle of invisible lightning between them – something feral and primal and rooted deep inside their souls, connecting them. They were _meant_ for this; they lived best on the knife’s edge, on a high of adrenaline, never knowing or caring what was coming next. Sam looked over at his brother, expecting to see the same exhilaration reflected in his eyes but what he saw instead was quite different. A tense determination. A beat-up tiredness. A sense that Nathan had seen all this before and, quite frankly, was getting sick of it.

He noticed something else, too. Nathan seemed to keep one eye on Elena and Sam no matter what he was doing. Every move he made put himself in front of them both, as if he could shield them with his own body. Sam let him take the lead, wondering when his little brother had suddenly turned into the protector. That had always been Sam’s job. Although, as it turned out, maybe he'd never been all that good at it. 

And then there was Elena. Sam had been worried the moment he found out she was on the island, imagining that her presence would hold them back, but she held her own with no concessions. And she moved in sync with Nathan just as smoothly as Sam did – albeit in a slightly different way. She hadn’t said a word to Sam yet but she didn’t hesitate to cover him when he ran for the next hiding place, or toss him a fresh weapon when he was out of ammo.

They fought their way through the skeleton ships, making slow but steady progress punctuated by near misses. Sam boosted Elena up to a semi-sunken ship and she turned back to help him up. "Thanks," he said, in the first moment of pause they'd had so far. She nodded her acknowledgement, straight-faced, and waited for Nathan to catch up. Nathan made a quick visual check of their wellbeing when he joined them, breathing hard, eyes focused to an intense, almost hyperactive point. "Let's go," he panted, gesturing for Sam and Elena to go first.

The ear-splitting crash of snapping wood sent them all flying as an RPG tore a hole in the hull right beside them. Nathan was trapped behind debris but yelled for them to keep going, and then another missile struck and the ship was lurching, sinking, and Nathan was gone and it was all Sam and Elena could do to leap to the next ship in time. Sam expected Elena to lose it then; to collapse into a heap of panic and terror and start screaming for Nathan, but she didn’t miss a step, not until they'd made it to dry land and were finally out of the line of fire. They rested briefly behind a turn in the cliffside, the sound of fighting a reassuring distance away. Elena leaned against the rocks and fought for breath for a second before staring intently at the tangle of masts and detritus in the bay, searching for a sign of Nathan.

“There,” she said, pointing at a flurry of gunfire towards the east, “He must’ve ended up on that beach over there.”

Sam gazed at her, impressed. He’d been pleasantly surprised – despite the circumstances - when he’d first met her back in Madagascar. She was not at all what he was expecting. She’d given Nathan a suitable dressing down, staying calm and collected even though he knew she must have wanted to slap him for lying to her. And she’d left on her terms, not Nathan's. Sam felt a twinge of guilt when he realised that the fractures in their relationship were all his fault. She must have thought so too. She must hate his fucking guts. And yet she spared him a breathless smile as they moved on. “C’mon, let’s go.”

*      *      *

_Little brother, how do you get yourself into this shit?_

Nathan was being chased by an armoured truck. It forged down the narrow streets of New Devon like a tank, missing Nathan by inches at every corner, smashing through walls and buildings and roaring its way after him like some murderous beast.

For a moment Sam and Elena just stared, shaking their heads in disbelief. _Only Nathan…_

Then there were bullets flying toward them, too, and they ducked in unison, tearing off across the rooftops.

“Oh my god, Nate!” Elena cried, stopping suddenly as the tower Nathan was climbing collapsed, rammed by the unstoppable truck.

Sam’s heart dropped but as the tower swayed and fell he saw his brother leap and catch hold of a structure opposite.

“He’s okay!” Sam breathed, pushing Elena onward.

_Just keep running, Nathan. Don’t stop now._

“Up here,” she called, as they pulled themselves up to a balcony. She pointed towards the forest-covered mountains behind the town. “We can get across to that cliff from the roofs, I think.” And before Sam had time to consider the plan she was climbing the side of the building. He followed, unwilling to let her out of his sight for even a second, not daring to think what Nathan would do if Sam let any harm come to his wife.

She reached the roof before him and he heard a grunt as she hauled herself over the edge, immediately followed by a sharp yelp of pain.

“Elena?” he called, pausing in his climb. “You all right?”

There was no reply, but a merc with a shotgun loomed over the roof and grinned unpleasantly down at him. A second later, Elena was pushed dangerously close to the edge by another soldier, arms twisted behind her, a fresh smear of blood on the side of her face.

Sam didn’t pause. His hand was already halfway to the gun in his waistband the moment he saw the soldiers appear, and he hung from one arm as he took aim. His first shot took the merc with the shotgun in the shoulder, but the impact was muted by his body armour and only served to knock him back a step. The second shot flew wide as Sam swung precariously from the ledge – and when he tried for a third his clip ran out.

The merc smiled as he heard the click of the empty chamber, swinging the barrel of his shotgun down towards Sam. It would be impossible for him to miss from this distance and as Sam felt his fingers slipping he wondered what would kill him first – the shotgun blast or the fall...

“No!” Elena yelled, eyes widening. Then her face fixed in gristly determination and she threw herself backwards, catching her captor hard under the chin with the top of her head. He crumpled behind her and she kicked out at shotgun guy’s back, sending him flying off the edge of the roof just as he pulled the trigger. Buckshot clattered against the side of the building and Sam squeezed his eyes shut, flashbacks of Panama fluttering through his terrified brain, but when the noise died down he was amazed to find himself in one piece.

“Sam! Climb!” Elena’s voice snapped him out his incredulous daze. She was leaning over the roof, one arm extended to help him up.

He took the help. His arms were shaking with the effort and his stomach was in knots. He collapsed onto the tiles beside her, waiting for his heart to stop hammering. The soldier she’d headbutted was out cold and Sam quickly relieved him of his handgun.

“You okay?” Elena asked him, rubbing the top of her head with a grimace of pain.

“Yeah,” he panted. “You?”

“Yeah.” A shaky smile crossed her lips but faded just as quickly, replaced with concern, “Shit. Where’s Nate?”

Sam scanned the town below and caught sight of a familiar figure jumping over fences and debris, the unstoppable truck still at his heels.

“We’ve gotta help him,” Elena gasped, turning to go, but as she raised herself from her crouch Sam saw the telltale red beret of another Shoreline soldier taking aim from across the street.

“Get down!”

Sam launched himself at her, catching her around the waist and bearing them both down to the roof as a sniper shot rang out deafeningly close. _Too close._

Sam spun, focused to a pinpoint, gun raised, his hands steady as a fucking rock because _no one_ takes a potshot at his sister-in-law so help him-

He fired. The sniper dropped like a stone. The echo of the shot gave way to a resounding silence.

“Good shot,” Elena said quietly. He could feel her shivering with shock beside him. She was tough, but not that tough.

He faltered. Should he put his arm around her? Almost getting your head shot off might be a unique bonding experience but they’d barely exchanged twenty words so far. Plus, he knew she was only saving his ass because she knew how much he meant to Nathan. He guessed she wouldn’t appreciate him treating her with kid gloves so he held out his hand, instead. “Let's call it even,” he said wryly. 

She took his hand with a quirk of a smile and they helped each other to their feet. It wasn’t over yet but at least now they had a shared goal: _Save Nathan._

 *      *      *

They missed the big finale - Sully appearing out of nowhere and blasting the shit out of the truck with an RPG – but they sure as hell heard it. “Just follow the sound of explosions…” Elena muttered to herself as they turned down an alleyway and saw Sully pull Nathan up over a wall to safety.

The tension of the past hour melted out of Sam and was replaced with a wave of exhaustion. Elena ran ahead to wrap her arms around her husband but Sam hung back behind an archway. Nathan’s face lit up when he saw his wife and he pulled her close. He was covered in mud, fresh scrapes and scratches all over him, but he was  _alive._ He even traded a few jokes with Sully, making out like it was all a big riot. Something else he'd learned from Sam. Never let on how scared you'd been, or how closely you'd brushed with death - laugh it off, play up the cocky bravado, save the fallout for later.

Sam watched the three of them together. They’d been through a hell of a lot - Sully, Nathan and Elena - all of it without Sam. He’d heard at least some of the stories. He wondered for a moment if they’d even notice if he slipped away. Because if he stepped through this archway now it would mean having to explain, to try to justify everything, somehow. And he knew there was no possible excuse that would make it okay. He didn’t deserve Nathan’s forgiveness for what he’d done.

“How you doing?” Sully asked Elena.

She took the same downplayed approach, as if they hadn’t both just nearly been killed twice over: “Good. There were some close calls but um…” She looked back through the archway and Sam knew he couldn’t loiter any more “…he covered me.”

_That’s your cue, asshole._

Sam ducked through the archway, half-lifting a hand in greeting. “Hey.”

Nathan stepped towards him slowly. “Hey.”

This was not the reunion he'd hoped for. They stood there in silence for a second, Sam searching for forgiveness in his brother’s eyes, and Nathan – well, who knows what he was thinking.

“How’s that?” Nathan asked, jerking his chin at Sam’s arm.

“Oh,” he laughed emptily, “Bullet grazed my shoulder.”

Another awkward silence. There was a new, angry scrape on Nathan’s forehead. Sam frowned at it.

“You?” he asked.

“Cliffside… grazed my face.”

The memory of watching Nathan fall flashed behind Sam’s eyes and he swallowed the lump in his throat. 

“So how’d you lose Rafe?” Nathan asked him.

All the elation of his escape, of finding Nathan and Elena, of getting by with only his wits and charm seemed so stupid now. He gave a half-hearted chuckle. “I... led his crew right into one of Avery’s traps.”

“Smart.”

_Ah, the old monosyllabic treatment. Just like Nathan used to do when he was a teenager and Sam had done something to piss him off._

Nathan nodded and turned away again. Conversation over. Sam deflated. What was he hoping for? Praise? Admiration? Unconditional forgiveness?

_Okay, time to just fucking say it-_

“Hey, hey, look… About the whole Alcázar thing…”

But Nathan cut him off. “Hey, just… we can save that for later, okay?”

And Nathan turned his back on him once more, a cold cut-off that left Sam feeling like a stupid kid, like Nathan was the big brother and he was just the useless little shit who’d got them into trouble again.

_But isn’t that how it always goes?_

He vaguely clocked the discussion going on between the other three. They wanted to leave. _Get the hell off this rock_ , Sully said.

And a quiet anger began to build inside him. They’d come this far and they wanted to just _go_? Avery’s ship was only a few short miles away, beneath the mountain that looked like a roaring mouth. And all their plans, all that pain, all the fear and fleeing and surviving – all of it – would be for nothing if they left now.

Against his better judgement he butted in, telling them about the shortcut, about the chance to beat Rafe to the finish line, and never once taking his eyes off Nathan. Because he didn’t have to convince all of them; he just had to convince his brother.  _This is what we’ve been searching for our whole lives_.

And then they turned on him. All of them. Made out like he was one of the villains in their stories. _Obsessive_ , Nathan said. That one hurt.

“You just don’t know when to quit,” Sully barked, and Sam wanted to deck him.

“Look,” he said, his voice shaking with the effort of staying calm, “We’re all here for the same reason, right? Right?”

_Nathan, back me up for the love of-_

“We didn’t come after the treasure,” Elena said flatly, “We came after you.”

Sam sighed. He could feel his grip on Nathan slipping away. He stepped past Sully and Elena, close enough to his brother that he barely had to whisper. "Look..." he said, and unfolded Avery’s map, feeling his brother tense with interest beside him. He thought that would be the end of it - tangible proof that everything they’d been chasing for so long was within their grasp – but the moment he suggested Sully and Elena didn't get it, the look on his brother's face changed and Sam knew he’d lost him.

"Hey," Nathan said softly, putting a hand on his shoulder, “We’re not those kids anymore. We’re not. And we’ve got _nothing_ to prove.”

The words hit him like a physical blow.

Nothing to prove? Hadn’t he promised Nathan this from the beginning? For the best part of thirty years, from the night he broke him out of the orphanage and they found their mother’s journal.

_Nothing to prove?_

Nathan had this whole other world without him. He’d made his own conquests and found his own treasures and made his own family in Sully and Elena.

Sam just had Nathan. Thirteen years of rotting in prison, and two more wrapped up in Rafe’s manipulations. Fifteen years with one single burning desire – to get out, find Nathan, and track down Avery's treasure. Together. Like they’d always planned. Nathan was his entire world but Sam had fallen out of his. And there was nothing that could possibly fill that void.

He stepped away. Empty. Numb. Not sure whether he wanted to scream or cry or both. He tapped the map against his wrist to stop his hands from shaking.

“Victor, where’s that plane?” he asked in a hollow voice, desperate to get away from Nathan’s pitying eyes. _This is not how it was supposed to happen. This is not how it was supposed to go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "He covered me," Elena says. Made me wonder what happened while Nate was being chased by a giant, psychotic truck - voila, new chapter. Also the reunion scene in UC4 always ruins me... Sam trying to keep his shit together after Nate says "we've got nothing to prove." [gross sobbing]


	6. Sic Parvis Magna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All or nothing. Avery's treasure's within reach and Sam has something to prove. He just doesn't realise what until it's almost too late...

They headed back through the decrepit town towards Victor’s plane. Sam had very little to say to any of them, hanging back as much as possible, lending a hand when needed, moving in a daze of anticlimax. It couldn’t all be over. Not when they were so close. Rafe and his army seemed a million miles away now, and here they were, running away with their tails between their legs…

When they got to an impassable gap Sam dutifully threw his shoulder into a beam to shove it out over the edge so that Nathan could jump across and hook his rope around a pulley system. The rest of them piled onto the platform hanging precariously above a gorge and Sam watched Elena and Victor leap across to the other side before reaching down for his brother. Nathan climbed the rope and stretched out an arm, but the jolt of his jump snapped the cable and sent the platform lurching sideways. Both brothers managed to cling onto the wooden slats, suddenly turned vertical. They climbed in parallel, leaping in opposite directions to safety, and when they clambered to their feet they found themselves on opposite sides of the ravine.

Nathan approached the edge, gesturing for Sam to jump over, "C’mon, I’ll catch you."

 _Yeah. Just like in Panama._ _And_ _look how that one turned out._

But Sam had already made his decision and Nathan could see it in his face.

“No. No, no,” Nathan said, voice raising in anger, “Don’t you even think about it, you hear me?”

Sam gave a broken little smile. “I’m sorry I got you into this. All of you.”

He couldn’t bring himself to look up at Nathan. The desperation in his brother’s voice was bad enough.

“All that doesn’t matter anymore okay,” Nathan tried, “Just… Just jump.”

Sam shook his head slowly. _They didn’t get it. None of them. Not even Nathan._ “I gotta see this thing through, Nathan.”

He turned to go and Nathan’s voice became an echo of his own, back when they were kids, when Sam tried and filed to act the parent: “Sam! Hey! Listen to me, if you do this I’m not coming after you. You hear me?”

“I’m sorry.”

It was all he could say. He ducked through a doorway and broke into a run, heading towards the mountain, away from his brother’s disappointment. He could still hear Nathan calling his name but it was too late to turn back now. The only thing waiting for him was Avery’s treasure. Avery’s ghost. Avery’s curse.

*      *      *

He got to the ship before Rafe and Nadine. They were still arguing at the entrance to the cave, their raised voices echoing through the cavernous space. Sam ran his hands over the ancient boards of the ship, smooth with wear and age. He was dripping wet from swimming through the gorge and the chill of the water heightened his senses, sending every nerve tingling. _It’s real_. _Avery’s ship. It's really real._

He climbed over the gunwale and dropped to the deck, resisting the urge to laugh out loud. If the ship was still here, then so was the treasure. But somehow right now the gold didn’t even matter. It was the principle of the thing - after twenty-five goddamn years, after everything they’d been through, they found it. He’d found it.

He eased open the door to the hold and felt his breath hitch as his heart tattooed an irregular pattern against his rib cage. In the low light the treasure glittered and shone, covering every surface. The homicidal greed of the pirate captains suddenly came into stark focus. This was blood money, every last scrap of it. He picked up a coin and ran his thumb over the embossed image. Skulls and bones. A little shiver that had nothing to do with excitement ran down his spine, along with a cold feeling in his stomach that felt like a void. If Nathan were here with him would he feel the same? Or would they be laughing and whooping like a couple of kids who’d won the jackpot? He didn’t know. All he knew was that this wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting. It felt... empty. Lost in thought, he didn’t even hear Rafe and Nadine come up behind him. Didn’t notice the gun cocking until it was pressed against the back of his head.

“Samuel,” Rafe’s drawling voice said wearily. “Why am I not surprised?”

Sam turned slowly, reality rushing back in like a slap to the face. A singular truth took hold of his mind: _This is it. You’re gonna die here._

He raised his hands slowly. He couldn’t talk his way out of this one. Rafe’s patience for his negotiations were well and truly exhausted. Nadine stood in the doorway, watching the two of them with an edginess that didn’t become her.

“Time to end this, Sam,” Rafe said quietly.

“Rafe-” Sam began. “Don’t be stupid. There’s enough here to live on for the rest of our lives…”

“You think that’s why I’m doing this?” Rafe barked out a laugh. “You think I need the money?”

“C’mon, Rafe. We worked together on this. Partners, right? You don’t have to do this.”

“Oh, I really, _really_ do. You and your brother have been a pain in my ass for the last fifteen years, and I’ve had about enough.”

Sam stalled for time, knowing how much Rafe liked to soliloquise. “Okay, I get it, I do. It’s not about the money. So what is it, fame? Recognition? Respect? What is it you want, Rafe?”

“I want what’s mine,” Rafe snarled. “And I don’t like sharing.”

Sam’s eyes scoured the darkened room. There was only one way in or out and Nadine was blocking it. A nagging feeling that he’d missed something important itched at his brain. It had all been too easy, getting to the ship, getting into the hold – Avery never passed up a chance to complicate the lives of those chasing his treasure and Sam hadn’t come across a single trap since the tunnels...

Sweat beaded on his skin as he saw what he’d been looking for: tripwires crisscrossed the floor behind him, flickering in the light of Nadine’s torch. The acrid smell of gunpowder hung in the air, long left undisturbed but no less volatile for its years of waiting.

_Rafe doesn’t like sharing, huh? Well neither does Avery._

A pair of skeletons were slumped in the corner: Avery and Tew, the last survivors, both of them with swords in their chests. _Maybe that’s how it was always meant to end._

“Fine,” Sam said, with a resigned sigh, taking a cautious step sideways. “Fine, Rafe, it’s yours. All of it.” He swept his arms out in a low, patronising bow, clearing the way towards the treasure, sidestepping carefully in a slow circle towards the door.

“Keep an eye on him,” Rafe growled to Nadine, who already had her gun trained on Sam as he approached her.

Sam held her eyeline, desperately trying to communicate something, anything, that would make her understand what was about to happen. There was no need for them all to die here. Just Rafe, ideally. She stared back at him, a hesitant confusion in her eyes.

Then, a moment of silent anticipation that seemed to suck all the air out of the room before Rafe took another step forward and his boot touched a tripwire and the world imploded.

*     *     *

A heavy kind of warmth. Flickering light. Bloody copper in his mouth. And pressure – like a giant hand squeezing down on his chest, preventing him from breathing in more than a sliver, pressing him down into the ground with a cold, aching absence of feeling.

_That’s how you know you’re really fucked, when it hardly hurts at all._

Voices murmured around him and a trickle of comprehension teased at the edges of his brain. He tried to grab onto something. A thought. A name. A face. _Nathan. God, Nathan, I'm sorry._ But the darkness was quicker and pulled him under again before he could cry out.

*     *     *

“You can have the treasure, just let me save my brother.” Nathan’s voice, far away and right beside him at the same time. Sam tried to move but the connection between his thoughts and his muscles was well and truly broken.

“After _everything_ he’s done?” Rafe scoffed.

“We can get out of here together.”

Sam’s consciousness wavered. What the hell was Nathan doing here? Trying to save him? Where even _was_ ‘here’? His eyes flickered open for a brief, painful moment and it all came rushing back.

The treasure. Rafe setting off Avery’s trap. The whoosh of igniting gunpowder and the hot breath of hell as the explosion sent Sam crashing into a supporting beam, which in turn came crashing down on top of him. Fire all around. And the knowledge that he was going to die here, surrounded by pirate gold that he’d sacrificed everything for. It seemed like a fitting death after all.

There was no getting out of this one. And somehow that was… okay. Or at least it would have been until he heard Nathan pleading for Sam’s life, bargaining with Rafe all over again, and Rafe taunting him, pushing him, saying all the things that Sam had once secretly thought – an insipid jealousy that had plagued him ever since he’d got out of prison. _Nathan_ _Drake: the legend_. All those adventures… _That should have been us. It should have been me._

But all of that was meaningless now. His whole life, it hadn’t been about the money. It hadn’t been about the adventure. It had always been about _Nathan_ – giving that little kid something to reach for, something to live for, something better than the shitty hand they'd been dealt. That’s all Sam had ever wanted. But he’d been wrong. That wasn’t what Nathan needed. And his little brother had worked it out for himself, without Sam; he’d found his own treasure and it wasn’t made of gold.

He was idly aware of shouts and scuffling footsteps on the boards near his head. The whistle of a blade passing through the air. The choking, stifling smoke from the raging fire dropping lower and lower. And that prick, Rafe, still ranting, like the vicious little bully he always was. He heard his brother gasp with pain and caught a glimpse of Nathan stumbling away, one hand dripping blood, Rafe approaching him with… a sword? _A fucking sword, Rafe, really?_ And something snapped inside Sam – some protective sibling instinct that made him rage with the thought of anyone, _anyone_ , laying so much as a hand on his brother -  throwing him back twenty-odd years to a rain-soaked schoolyard in Boston, the looming towers of the St Francis’ Boys Home casting shadows so deep they swallowed him up and unconsciousness won out once more.

*     *     *

For a building full of nuns, the orphanage could be one hell of a violent place; a training ground for their later years in prison, perhaps. Kids were brutal enough as it was, but unwanted, vulnerable, cast aside kids who got told every day that all their misfortunes were due to their inherently sinful souls…? Yeah. Hell hath no fury like an angry Catholic.

The schoolyard was meant for recreation but mostly it was used to implement the pecking order of the boys’ home. Over the years Sam had paid his dues and taken his fair share of beatings to protect his little brother, but as Nathan got older the kid’s natural shyness gave way to a fiery temper fueled by burgeoning testosterone. And the other boys knew there was one subject that never failed to light that touch-paper: his mother. Under the doctrines of St Francis’, suicide was not compatible with everlasting peace in heaven and if you were bored and wanted a good show, all you had to do was goad someone into telling Nate Morgan his mom was burning in hell.

Sam usually waded in around the point Nathan was about to get his ass handed to him, though he’d been leaving it later and later recently, just to see what the kid was really made of. Sam was lanky at sixteen and Nathan was still a little small for eleven, though finally starting to shoot up and lose his baby fat, and the boy was _fast._ Faster than Sam. Faster than most of the other kids, so long as they didn’t gang up on him, which is exactly what they were doing today.

Nathan was backed up into a corner, the designated victim in a game of chicken that involved a bunch of older boys throwing a basketball at him, scoring points for hitting various different body parts. By the time Sam reached him Nathan had a bloody nose, red-rimmed eyes and a quivering lip. Sam snatched the ball out of the nearest kid’s hands and lobbed it away across the yard. “Give it up,” he snapped, putting himself between his brother and the attackers, “Find yourselves a new game, okay?”

After a moment of feral staring the majority of the kids turned away, muttering insults under their breath but not brave enough to say them to Sam’s face. Sam watched them go before bending down to help Nathan back up, turning his face up to the light to check the damage and wiping away a smear of blood from his upper lip. Nathan wrenched himself out of Sam’s grip angrily and ducked his head, more embarrassed by his brother’s attention than being the butt of the joke.

“Hey,” Sam said softly, “You okay?”

“I don’t need your help,” Nathan mumbled.

Sam shrugged. “Kinda looks like you do.”

Nathan whirled on him. “It just makes it worse!”

“You want me to just sit by and watch?”

“I can fight my own battles,” Nathan said, glaring up at his brother. Sam opened his mouth to retort and then closed it again, channeling as much patience as he could to stay calm.

“I know that,” he said, resting a hand on Nathan’s shoulder, and this time he didn’t shrug it off. “But you don’t have to.”

And there it was. The smile that transformed Nathan’s gaunt, grubby, blood-streaked face into that chubby-cheeked little five-year-old that lived right at the centre of Sam’s jaded, cracked heart.

But these kinds of moments never last. The basketball hit Sam in the side of the head and set his ears ringing, knocking him sideways, almost off his feet. He whipped around to face his assailant but there were four of them, more or less his own age, some of them taller and wider than Sam, and all of them wearing matching shit-eating grins.

He pushed Nathan behind him as they approached.

“Little shit’s got a mouth on him,” said the biggest of them, pointing at Nathan.

“Yeah, runs in the family,” Sam replied, reaching down to squeeze Nathan’s hand and hoping he’d read his thoughts – the mantra he’d drilled into the kid since he was seven: _If you can’t win, run._

“You’re not always gonna be around to protect him, you know,” the bully sneered.

A shiver of truth ran through Sam. He’d been thinking the same himself, lately. He clenched his jaw. “Well, I’m here now. You really wanna do this?”

The advancing foursome laughed in sync, power in numbers egging them on. Sam shoved Nathan away from him, “Go. Climb up to the attic and stay there,” he whispered sharply, but Nathan took his place beside his brother.

“No, this is my fight.”

“Not any more it isn’t, just go!”

But there was no more time to argue and Sam scooted back as the boys threw themselves at him. The unwritten rules of schoolyard brawls were simple:

  1. Get in as many flailing hits as you can before the staff intervened – tactics and precision don’t matter so much as letting out all that pent-up aggression that life in the orphanage seemed to horde up inside you.
  2. Get your assailant on the floor as early as possible – kicking is much easier than punching and you’re far less likely to get hit back.
  3. Work as a team to bring down your quarry. If the nuns can’t pin the blame on one person they’re more likely to let it slide.



Sam was well into the first point before number two came into play and a wrestling hold sent him thudding onto the concrete. He curled up, trying to protect his head, risking a glance up to see how Nathan was faring. He couldn’t help grinning when he saw that his brother had managed to climb onto one of the attacker’s backs and was methodically whacking him round the face with open fists.

Sam rolled onto all fours and scrabbled forward, dodging kicks and blows as best he could until he had his back against a wall. The biggest guy was heading right for him and Sam barely had a moment to catch his breath before a fist was swinging right for his nose.

Sam couldn’t really take the blame. He only did what anyone would do. He ducked, and the bully’s hand went sailing into the brick wall behind Sam’s head. The crunch of broken knuckles rang out across the yard just as the bell for the end of recess rang.

A horror-filled silence filled the yard. The bully was on the floor, coiled around his broken, mangled hand, squalling like a preschooler. The others had miraculously disappeared, their self-preservation instincts kicking in the moment things turned serious. And that’s how the nuns found them. Sam standing over the bully, breathing hard, looking for all the world like the bad guy.

*     *     *

“We will not tolerate any more of this senseless violence.”

“Sister Catherine-”

“I’ve lost count of the warnings we’ve given you, Samuel.”

“ _He_ tried to hit _me_.”

“I don’t want to hear excuses. Do you know how expensive hospital treatment is?”

“Take it out of my trust fund – oh wait, I don’t have one.”

“And I’ve had just about enough of your lip, too, young man.”

“Sister, they were ganging up on Nathan. What? I’m supposed to just let it happen?”

“There are other ways to solve disputes than with your fists.”

“Yeah? What do you suggest, prayer? A few Hail Marys and they’ll just leave him alone? Great, I’ll try that next time, thanks.”

“And you, Nathan-”

The fuming nun turned on Nathan and Sam felt himself take a protective step to the side towards his brother. “Hey, leave him out of this.”

“-I expect better from you,” Sister Catherine said to Nathan, her voice softening somewhat. “You’re not like your brother. You have potential.”

Sam let out a humourless laugh to cushion the verbal blow and shook his head. “You are a piece of work…”

Sister Catherine’s lips tightened briefly with annoyance. “Nathan, I hate to see you follow the same path as your brother, but it seems that’s the way you’re headed,” she continued, turning to her desk and retrieving a file from a stack of paperwork. “This is yet another black mark on your record, Nathan, and it’s time you faced the consequences.”

Sam stepped forward, not liking where this was going. “What are you talking about? He’s got nothing to do with this. It was _my_ fight.”

She ignored him, reading from the file in monotone. “Truancy. Fighting. Trespassing. Theft of food from the kitchens-”

“If you’d actually feed us properly that wouldn’t be a problem,” Sam interjected, trying to keep the focus away from his brother.

“We’ve been easy on you so far because we hoped you’d see the error of your ways but there comes a point when tolerance just isn’t enough,” the nun finished, letting the file drop back onto the desk and folding her arms. “You’ll spend a day and night in contemplation,” she said, fixing Nathan with a firm look.

Nathan barely reacted, frozen with fear. _Contemplation_ was a euphemistic pile of bullshit for solitary confinement in a tiny maintenance cupboard in the basement – a place for wayward boys to ‘cool off’ in freezing, pitch-black darkness. The nuns weren’t allowed to beat the kids in their care but that didn’t mean they couldn’t find other, more creative ways of punishing them. Sam could see the tears gathering in Nathan’s eyes and his anger snapped off the leash.

“You can’t do this. He’s just a kid. This is abuse. I’ll go to the cops – you think your pious little outfit and all your crucifixes will protect you? They’ll shut you down-”

“You want to talk about the police, Samuel?” Sister Catherine answered coolly. “Outside the walls of this institution, your extensive list of misdemeanors would be more than enough to see you thrown in juvenile detention. The only thing protecting _you_ right now is the goodwill of St Francis'. All it would take is one phone call-”

“Sam…” Nathan’s shaky voice seemed to come from far away, but Sam couldn’t tear his eyes away from the odious woman standing before him. _Just another power-hungry bully._

“You bitch… You get off on this, don’t you?” he snarled. “You-”

Her hand moved so fast he didn’t even realise what had happened until afterwards. She’d slapped him, hard, snapping his head to the side. His eyes filled eyes with water at the sting of it.

The three of them stood there for a moment, motionless, until Sister Catherine stepped neatly past the boys and rang a little bell on the edge of her desk. Another nun appeared almost instantly at the door. Sam guessed she’d been eavesdropping the whole time as she seemed utterly unsurprised to see Sam clutching his red cheek.

“Sister Agnes, please take Nathan along to contemplation. He’s to stay there until the morning.”

The sister nodded curtly and took hold of Nathan’s upper arm. To Sam’s dismay his little brother allowed himself to be led out, tears flowing freely now, resigned to his fate. He didn’t even look back.

“Nathan,” Sam called after him. “Don’t worry, Nathan, I’ll get you outta there, I promise, I’ll-” But the door closed behind him and Sam was alone with Sister Catherine.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” she said, with a sad shake of her head, “But we’ve done all we can for you. And your behavior is affecting Nathan’s wellbeing.”

“ _My_ behaviour? I’m the only one in this place who gives a shit about him-”

“You really believe that?” she asked quietly.

Sam met her gaze. “I do. I’m all he’s got.”

She let out a tired little sigh. “Nathan’s a smart boy. He may not have had the best start but he has his whole life ahead of him, and what he _doesn’t_ need is a dangerous, disruptive influence like you around.”

“I’m his _brother_ ,” Sam said incredulously. “Of course he needs me.”

Sister Catherine slammed a palm down on the desk in frustration. “Stop it, Samuel, just stop. You act like it’s the two of you against the world. You fill his head with all these dreams, these adventures, and make him believe there’s something better waiting for him out there. But what happens when he finds out there isn't? What can you offer him that we can’t, Sam? He needs stability. Storybook promises will only get you so far.”

Sam was stunned into silence. For once in his life he didn’t have a clever comeback. He stared down at the floor, too drained of emotion to even feel angry.

She took a step closer to him, and the warmth of her presence was almost comforting. “We have to think of Nathan,” she said, in a gentle voice that belied the last ten minutes they’d spent yelling at one another. “Think what’s best for him. And it’s our opinion that he’ll do better here without you. It’s time for you to leave us, Samuel.”

_Wait, what?_

Sam’s head jerked up and he gaped at her. “No-”

But she was shaking her head with a horrible finality. “It’s already been decided. You’re sixteen now, we can grant you legal independence and you can be on your way.”

He found himself grasping at her, holding onto her sleeves in supplication. “No, no, you can’t. I have to stay here, with Nathan, you can’t!”

Sister Catherine’s face was made of stone. She twitched her hands to dislodge him and backed away carefully, as if dealing with a wild animal. “It is our unanimous opinion that Nathan will be better off without you here. You may say your goodbyes in the morning but as of tomorrow you are no longer the responsibility of this institution.”

Sam was on his knees now, palms pressed together in prayer, a last-ditch effort to change her mind, vaguely aware of the pathetic strain in his voice as he pleaded, “I can’t leave him. Please. I’m sorry. Don’t make me…”

“It’s time to grow up, Samuel. Time to take responsibility for your actions.”

*     *     *

_Underneath all that bravado you’re just a sad little boy with delusions of grandeur._

It sounded like something Sister Catherine would say. Sam lurched back into consciousness with a grunt of pain. The fire raged around him and the clash of metal made him wince. From his limited view on the floor, he could see Rafe pressed up against a storage cage, Nathan’s blade at his throat. A surge of pride and relief swept through him.

_Skewer the fucker, Nathan._

But Rafe shoved Nathan away, slicing a gash across his stomach as he fell to the floor, sword falling from his hand and skittering across the boards. Sam tried to yell out but the beam crushing him stole his breath away. Rafe approached Nathan with murderous intent, raising his sword.

_Just another fucking bully._

Sam strained towards Nathan’s fallen sword, just beyond his fingertips. The bruised muscles of his abdomen screamed at him but he ignored them. _Just a little further._

“So long, Nathan Drake,” Rafe said.

“Nathan!” Sam yelled hoarsely, his fingers wrapping around the sword hilt and sliding it across the floor to his brother.

Nathan grabbed hold of it and brought the blade up just in time to deflect a killing blow but Rafe kept swinging, and Nathan was prone on the floor, bleeding from the wound to his stomach, each smashing strike breaking him down and leaving him vulnerable. Sam struggled to free himself but it was hopeless. All he could do was watch.

Rafe brought his sword down one final time and Nathan’s sword broke off at the hilt. It was over. Sam couldn’t look away but the thought of watching his little brother die was more than he could bear. It was his job to keep him alive: protecting him from the spirit-crushing constraints of the orphanage; grifting and scrabbling for survival on the streets; and fifteen years shut away, tortured by the fact of not knowing whether Nathan was okay out there without him, or even alive. And now, when it counted, he couldn’t do a damn thing.

Rafe’s sword raised once more but Nathan swept his arm sideways, slicing through a rope attached to a pulley fixed into the floor, and a net bulging with Avery’s cursed treasure dropped onto Rafe’s head, burying him completely with a sickening thunk.

Nathan was at his side in an instant. “C’mon, let’s get you outta here.”

Sam struggled against the beam as Nathan dug his fingers into the wood and hauled it upwards but it didn’t move an inch. 

“I’m trying,” Sam gasped. “It’s too heavy.”

“Just try again,” Nathan panted, heaving with the effort.

Sam could see the exhaustion in his brother’s face; the knowledge that they’d finally run out of luck. “It’s no use,” Sam said.

“Try again!” Anger and frustration flashed in Nathan’s eyes. _He never did know when to give up._

“It’s no use,” Sam breathed, flopping back against the floor. 

Nathan grunted as he put every ounce of strength into the immovable obstacle. “Come on!”

It was over. Sam knew it. Nathan knew it. He just wouldn’t admit it. “Nathan…”

Nathan fell back, defeated. “ _Goddamnit_.”

“Listen,” Sam whispered, “Listen to me.” Nathan’s eyes were manic, bordering on hysterical. Sam pressed his hand against his brother’s shoulder, shaking his head, his voice cracking. “All I ever wanted to do was find this treasure with you...”

“Sam, no, shut up.”

Sam squeezed his arm, forcing Nathan to look at him. “Hey. We did it,” he said in a soft, breathless voice, feeling his strength ebbing away. “We did it, little brother. It’s all right.”

Nathan looked away. “No…”

_Stupid, stubborn, heroic Nathan. Thinking he can save the world with good intentions._

“Nathan. _Nathan_.”

“There’s gotta be another way!”

Sam was going to die here, he’d already come to terms with that, but Nathan still had time…  _Goddamnit, just listen._

“You gotta go.”

Nathan was on the verge of tears, refusing to comprehend the truth. “No, no, there’s gotta be something…”

Sam’s voice turned harsh and he pushed his brother away with one last ditch effort. “ _You gotta go_.”

“There’s something!” Nathan stumbled away, raking his hands through his hair as if he wanted to tear his own head off.

“There _is_ no other way.”

Part of the ceiling caved in, sending burnt fragments of wood and ash raining down around them. The smoke was so thick now that every breath ended in a choking cough.

“Come on, Nathan,” Sam pleaded. “I gotta know you made it out all right.”

“No…” Nathan mumbled, backing away in disbelief.

_Don’t you die for me. Don’t you do it._

“Nathan, the whole place is about to blow up!”

Nathan paused, eyes darting to the cannon behind him, an idea blossoming in his mind. “That’s it. That’s it!”

“What the hell are you doing?” 

“Just trust me.”

And Sam did. With his life. But even for Nathan, this was ridiculous.

“Goddamn it…” Sam sighed, falling back once more.

Nathan grabbed a piece of flaming wood and brought it towards the fuse. “Just get your head down.”

Inside, Sam felt a crazy laugh brewing. _Sure, set off a cannon in the belly of a burning ship, why the hell not?_ It’s not like they had anything else to lose… “Oh shit.”

He felt the explosion through his spine as the cannon ball blew a gaping hole through the hull of the ship. Water poured through the gap, swamping the hold with gaspingly-cold water in stark contrast to the heat of the fire. A cloud of smoke engulfed them and Sam coughed, floundering in the rising water.

Nathan was beside him once more, yanking on the beam. “Do it now, come on.”

The added buoyancy of the water brought instant relief as Sam felt the wood shift. The water was streaming over his neck and shoulders now and he knew he only had seconds before he was taken under. They pushed together and, painfully slowly, the pressure on his stomach lifted a little.

“Go. Go!” Sam heard Nathan shout before the water closed up over his head.

A moment of panic, disoriented under the surging water, one final breath in his lungs the only thing between him and drowning... Sam wriggled backwards, the damage to his back and ribs tearing through him like knives, and then he was free, rolling over onto all fours and breaking the surface with an almighty intake of breath.

“You are one crazy son of a bitch,” he gasped, holding onto Nathan’s shoulder to pull himself upright.

He caught Nathan’s wry smile as his brother patted him on the back, “Takes one to know one. C’mon.”

*     *     *

Elena was waiting on the shore, unspeakable relief in her eyes as she caught sight of them in the water. She hauled Nathan out first, then Sam, and the brothers sprawled in the mud, coughing and convulsing, half scorched, half drowned, bloody and bruised, empty-handed, but _alive._

Sam let his head fall back onto the grass and watched Elena’s flare drift through the sky.

He closed his eyes and listened to the reassuring sound of his brother’s breathing beside him, a weak smile on his lips.

 _Now_  it was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, this chapter made me an utterly emotional mess. Toying with an epilogue but if this is it I wholly enjoyed writing this. Hope you enjoyed reading it.


	7. Something Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue...

_It was over._

The sun set over the mountain as Sully flew them up and over the island, away from Libertalia forever. There was an ache in Sam’s chest that went beyond the physical damage from being trapped inside the ship. It was as if a part of him had been left behind. The best part of his life… So much history… So much blood and gold and pain, buried forever.

Sam stared out of the window as the plane climbed above the island – suddenly it all looked small and insignificant. Nathan caught his eye and gave him a tiny smile and a gentle nudge. Sam knew that look. _You and me, brother._ They’d always managed to gloss over the trouble they got themselves into, laughing it off, turning it all into a game. Sam had taught Nathan that, back when he was a kid. The fiction was easier to deal with than the reality. But this time it felt hollow.

Nathan leaned back, crossed his arms and closed his eyes, rocking slightly with the movement of the plane as he settled into the knockout sleep of escaping by the skin of their teeth. Sam turned his eyes back to the landscape as it shrank into the sea.

_It was over._

Fifteen years he’d waited, and his time on the island had passed by in an instant. He’d been chasing Avery forever, it seemed. And now, after finally finding what he’d been dreaming about for so long, he was left with… nothing.

Well, not nothing. He’d made sure of that. It wasn't four-hundred million bucks but it was something - a tiny, stupid, infinitesimal consolation. And it wasn’t about the money, anyway. He knew that now. It was the chase that had kept him going – all those years on the run with his brother, all those years in Panama, all that time with Rafe, hiding from Nathan – it was like a hunger that could never be satisfied. He could eat and eat and eat until he was sick but it’d never be enough. He’d still feel empty. And for the first time in his life, Sam had no idea what he wanted or who he was meant to be or where he was going.

It was like being dropped into the middle of the ocean without a life raft.

He watched his brother’s eyelids flicker into REM sleep. He hoped they were good dreams. Somehow, he doubted it.

Elena came out of the cockpit and her eyes softened when she saw Nathan.

“I don’t know how he does it,” she whispered, sliding onto the bench opposite Sam. “He can sleep anywhere, whatever else is going on. Just... head down, lights out.” 

Sam couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, he’s always been like that.”

It was a blessing, and a useful skill when you needed to block out the discomforts of living on the streets and surviving on your wits. Sam had probably spent more hours watching his little brother sleep than sleeping himself.

Elena was studying him with a strange look on her face. Sam looked away, turning his lighter over and over in his hands. He had a lot to answer for, and now was a good a time as any. “Look… Elena. I know it doesn’t even begin to cover it…” he said slowly, and forced himself to meet her eyes, “But I’m sorry.”

She gave him a sad smile – the same one she’d given Nathan back in Madagascar when she’d caught him knee-deep in a tangle of lies. It _hurt_.

But then she nodded, looking across at her sleeping husband. “I get it,” she sighed. “I do. I wish things had gone differently but I can understand why you did… what you did. Both of you.”

Sam tried to smile back but it was difficult. He just hoped his brother felt the same way as she did. But Nathan had come after him, at least. After everything. After Sam had let him down again and again, Nathan had come back for him. It was a forgiveness, of sorts. He just wasn’t sure he deserved it. Nathan had walked away from his life, from Elena, on a mere word from Sam.

“I didn’t exactly give him a choice,” he said bitterly.

“No…” she agreed with a tilt of her head and a twisted smile, “But even if you had, you and I both know he’d have gone anyway.”

Sam wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.

“I never meant to hurt you. Any of you,” he said.

“I know,” she nodded. “You just... needed to see it through.”

He blinked in surprise. 

_Savvy lady._

“Right…”

Every time he thought he had the measure of Elena she took it up a notch. He guessed dealing with his brother for the last ten years had given her some pretty deep insights into the Drake psyche. There had been a time when he’d been jealous that she was at the centre of his brother's life, but now he saw why she was the best thing to ever happen to Nathan. Sam had spent his whole life believing it was his job – and his job alone – to keep his little brother safe. And now he could let go.

Exhaustion pulled down on him like a lead weight and the rumble of the plane’s engine ran through his bones.

Elena crossed over to sit the other side of her husband, nestling into his shoulder. Nathan shifted in his sleep, wrapping an arm around her instinctively. Sam watched them with an affectionate kind of envy. They were going back to their ‘normal life’. They had something to go back to; to build upon. They were going _home_.

Sam’s plans had never stretched further than Avery’s treasure. He’d never had a place to call his own; nowhere worth staying, unless it was with his brother. And that was out of the question now.

He shifted on the bench, trying to get comfortable, and slipped his hands in his pockets, flinching in surprise as his fingers touched metal. He’d almost forgotten about the coins he’d scooped up on his way out of Avery’s ship. They’d weighed him down as he’d swum out of the cave – another ridiculous decision that almost got them both killed – but he couldn’t have left without proof. Proof that he’d really been there. Proof that he – Samuel Drake... No, Samuel _Morgan_ – was capable of doing something worth remembering.

He closed his fist around one of the gold discs until it warmed in his palm. A smile slid across his face as he looked back over at his brother and Elena. One coin was enough for him. And he knew exactly what to do with the rest.

 

#

Back on dry land, after one of Sully’s many underground contacts had patched them all up in what looked suspiciously like a veterinary office, they’d headed down to the jetty to where Sully’s plane was waiting. The cool of the evening was a relief after the oppressive heat of Libertalia and Sam found his spirits rising as he regaled Elena with stories of Nathan as a kid. Her eyes twinkled when she laughed, and the tension that had hung over them on the island was starting to dissipate. The water lapped at the boardwalk and the ocean stretched out into the darkness, whispering of undiscovered adventure. 

“Hey look, Sam,” Elena said, holding out her hand stiffly as Nathan joined them, “It has been… an _experience_ getting to meet you.” 

Sam turned to his brother with raised eyebrows. “With a _handshake_?”

Elena laughed. “Well-”

“Bring it in for the real thing, sister,” he said softly, holding his arms out wide. She leant into his chest and he gave her a little squeeze before whispering in her ear, “Hey, take care of this numbskull, alright?”

She smiled into his shoulder. “Yeah, I will.”

Sam held the hug just a moment more and took the opportunity for a little sleight of hand, slipping the Libertalia coins into her jacket pocket.

_Still got it._

# 

‘Hey,” Sam called after Sully has he wandered back down the jetty towards the plane. “You got any more of those cigars?”

“Don’t push it,” Sully growled.

Sam laughed to himself and turned to watch the taxi turn a corner and disappear into the night, taking Nathan and Elena back home to rebuild what he'd sent crashing down. He’d made the right decision not to stay with them; not to impose. They needed their space. Some time, to work through the heap of shit he’d thrown them both into. He wasn’t sure if any of them would ever quite get over it, but they’d ended their journey with hugs instead of punches so he chalked that up as a plus.

And Sully had let him tag along, at least for the next job. After that… who knew? Maybe he’d just disappear again. Get out of their hair once and for all. He wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted right now, besides a week of sleep and a couple of litres of coffee. There was still an emptiness inside him, where Avery’s treasure ought to have been. Nathan might be done with it all but Sam’s palms were still itchy…

“Sam, you comin’?” Sully called.

Sam raised a salute and scuffed his way down the jetty to the plane, casting one last look back at the empty road. At least he’d left one good mark on the world. A legacy for Nathan and Elena.

#

Sam sat back in the co-pilot’s chair and rubbed his thumb over the embossed skull and crossbones on his one remaining coin. They were on their way to Portugal, for whatever job Sully had lined up, but Sam was distracted, only half-listening to the old man as he explained who and what they were dealing with.

A buzzing in his pocket made him startle and he pulled out his phone with a combination of dread and anticipation.

He’d been expecting the call but still winced when he saw Elena’s name flash up on the screen. He still wasn’t quite sure how she would react to his little ‘gift’…

Sully looked over at him, one eyebrow arched in curiosity as Sam continued to stare at the ringing phone.

“You gonna answer that or what?”

Sam nodded, swallowed, and hit the button.

Elena’s voice came through immediately in a harsh whisper: “Sam, what the hell?”

He screwed up his face in a grimace. “Hey-”

“What… the… hell?” she repeated – not angry as such, but clearly in shock and _clearly_ trying to keep the conversation a secret judging by her low tone. Sam couldn’t help but grin.

Sully was giving him the side-eye and Sam stifled a laugh. “Uh, what’s up? You guys get home okay?”

“How...?” Elena muttered. “Sam, you really, _really_ shouldn’t have. On so many levels.”

“Look, I know it doesn’t make up for… anything. But it’s a start, huh?” he said.

There was a long silence. Then: “Thank you, Sam,” Elena said at last.

“Does Nathan know?”

“Not yet…” There was a hint of a smile in her voice. “But I think I might have a plan.”

Sam nodded. He trusted her judgement. His brother was in safe hands.

“Hey. Don’t stay away too long, okay?” she told him.

He knew he couldn’t make that promise but he mumbled a kind of affirmation and Elena rang off to enact whatever devious strategy she had in mind for Avery’s gold.

Sully was still staring at him. “Samuel…” he said, in a warning voice, “What did you do?”

Sam leant his head back against the chair and grinned. “Something good for a change.”

#

**Twelve months later...**

Sam had always thought of himself as the last dog in the pound – the scrawny, raggedy one no one wanted to adopt, with a sign on his cage that says: “Does not play well with others.”

It had taken him a long time to trust Sully, even after everything in Libertalia, even after the years they’d spent together before Panama. He knew Sully and Elena had only really come after him because of Nathan. He didn’t blame them – he knew he hadn’t deserved it. Still, he’d appreciated Sully offering to let him tag along on the Portugal job, even if it was probably just another favour to Nathan, to keep tabs on him. But it had been a year now and Sam was still Sully’s first port of call when he needed a second man. And that made him feel… something. A kind of warm pride. Even if he’d never say it out loud.

They’d been to three different continents and seven different countries in the last twelve months. They’d made (and lost) a shit-tonne of money. They’d been shot at and hunted and chased down and blackmailed and double-crossed and barely made it out alive more than once. But no matter how poorly they came off at the end of it, there was always another job. There was something addictive about it, and Sully’s endless optimism that _this one_ would be the one that made them stupidly rich was contagious. Sam was starting to realise why Nathan had hung around with the gnarly old sailor for so long.

Still. Sam was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, always aware of the unspoken comparison between him and his brother. He knew he didn’t approach things the same way. He had different instincts, honed by a life of begging, borrowing and stealing to look after his little brother, and fifteen years scrabbling for survival in a Panamanian jail. In some ways, Sam’s nature complemented Sully’s. He’d come to realise that Sully's morals were somewhat looser than Nathan’s, and his brother's self-sacrificing heroics wouldn't have been Sully’s first choice. Sully knew how to look after number one. It was Nathan who thought he had to single-handedly look after the other seven billion people in the world.

But Nathan’s unshakeable moral compass remained there, at the back of both their minds. Whenever they crossed over into potentially unethical waters, Sam and Sully would exchange a look, and the words: “ _What would Nathan do?”_ would pass silently between them. They’d turned down a lot of jobs that way, without speaking a word about it. They’d lost a lot of treasure, too. And even saved a few lives.

Perhaps that’s why Sam had stayed with Sully this long, knowing that if he was back on his own, left to his own devices, that niggling little reminder – _What would Nathan do?_ – wouldn’t ring so loud. He’d drift back into his own personal echelon of criminality and forget about the bigger picture. The one where you go after the adventure, the history, instead of the treasure. The one where you choose the greater good over the money. Nathan had that effect on people.

And so, when the old man gave him the “I’m _really_ getting too old for this shit” speech, Sam felt as if he’d been cast adrift.

They were sitting in the sunshine outside a cafe in Berlin when he broke the news. 

"You're  _retiring_?" Sam spluttered. 

"I'm taking a _break_ ," Sully said. "God knows I've earned it."

Sully caught the wild, lost look in Sam’s eyes and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, “Don’t get yourself all twisted up, Sam. I’ve found someone to keep an eye on you.”

Sam’s mind whirled with questions but before he could ask who, Sully tipped his cigar towards a woman striding purposefully over to their table.

“Meet your new partner,” Sully grinned as Chloe took an empty seat across from Sam and smoothly stole his drink from out of his hand.

She was tall and skinny, with long black hair and shrewd eyes that looked just about as distrustful as Sam felt. But when she smiled her face transformed. _Butter wouldn’t melt_ , was the phrase that came to Sam’s mind, though he knew better. She gave him an amused look and held out her hand.

“So, this is the _other_ Drake,” she said, “Nice to meet you.”

Sam shook her hand loosely, and she gave his knuckles a squeeze before she let go.

“Uh, I think you'll find that’s the _original_ Drake,” Sam corrected. Then, to Sully, “I'm sorry, ‘p _artner_ ’?”

“You can rely on Chloe. We go way back,” Sully beamed at her, eyes twinkling. Chloe rolled hers. “She’s good in a tight corner, and a helluva driver. And she has a job for you.”

“How’s your Hindu mythology?” Chloe asked him.

Sam’s brow wrinkled. “Passable.”

Her lips twisted in a sarcastic smirk. “Just tell me you don’t have the same hero complex as your brother.”

_What would Nathan do?_

“No danger of that,” he replied, and retrieved his drink as Chloe leaned forward and began outlining her plan.

India. The Tusk of Ganesh. Another adventure. An almost certain recipe for trouble.

Just what he needed.

Sam rolled the Libertalia coin over and over his knuckles, feeling the knot of uncertainty in his stomach slowly unravel. That empty aching void Libertalia had left inside him was still there, like a shadow inside his soul, but it was starting to shrink. Every time he finished a job, he felt that burning need to prove himself lessen, bit by bit. He was free, and his brother was safe, and there was nothing chasing him except his own conscience.

And, when Sam was finally done running around with thieves and conmen, he had something to come back to. He might not have a home but for the first time in his life he had a family, of sorts. 

Maybe even the prospect of a normal life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm done. *sob*
> 
> Thank you for sticking with this so long. It's been a labour of love and I appreciate every single kudos and comment that's been left on this fic - you guys are the best.


End file.
